Development of new carbon thin films could translate into protective covering for a wide range of products
CARBON thin films are one of the most
important applications of carbon nanotubes and elongated fifflerenes, named
after Buckminister Fuller, the inventor
of the geodesic dome. G A i Amaratunga
and his collaborators Zihe University
of Liverpool, UK, have reported the
development of a hard, elastic, carbon
thin film made up of carbon nanoparticles (Nature, Vol 383, No 6598).
Last year, a research group had
reported the fabrication of a very hard,
elastic form of carbon nitride in which
the carbon sheets were interlinked
because of the presence of nitrogen.
Amaratunga and his co-workers have
developed hard, elastic-thin films of
pure carbon.
The technique used by them is based
on the high pressure arc plasma method
used to produce fullerene molecules and
nanotubes. In their experiments, they
used a high local gas pressure carbon arc
technique with the arc on the graphite
cathode acting as a carbon source. The
arc is created by a helium or nitrogen jet
in a high pressure region, while the
rest of the apparatus is at a very low
pressure.
The nanotubes formed in the arcing
process are carried by the high pressure
gas flow and deposited on the substrate
in the low pressure regiom-The resulting
film is studied with the help of high-
resolution electron microscopy and its
structure and properties ascertained. It
has been found that the film consists of
well-formed, fullerene-like structures
interspersed with an amorphous carbon
background. Interestingly, when the
film was deposited on a heated substrate
(at 350'c), the hardness as well as
the elastic recovery of the films increase
significantly.
With these results, the researchers
believe that a qualitatively new ,form of
carbon thin film has been formed.
Theoretical and experimental studies on
this new carbon nanoparticle thin film
are still continuing. The complete
theoretical understanding of the properties and the detailed structure of
the films is still not known and
should be clear when further studies
are made. Nevertheless, because the
process of making the films is relatively
simple, their potential application
as protective coatings on a host of
things ranging from computer memories to surgical implants could emerge
soon.
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