Recently, faculty and student of School of Materials Science and Engineering of Jiangsu University (JSU) published a comprehensive review titled Mechanisms of Single-walled Carbon Nanotube Growth and Progresses on Their Selective Synthesis in Advanced Functional Materials, a leading international journal in the materials field. Jiangsu University is listed as the first affiliation for this review. PhD student from School of Materials Science and Engineering of JSU Feng Tianliang is the first author. Prof. Xu Ziwei from School of Materials Science and Engineering of JSU and Prof. Ding Feng from Suzhou Laboratory are the co-corresponding authors.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are recognized as one of the most promising carbon nanomaterials due to their outstanding mechanical and electronic properties. They are expected to be widely applied in future optoelectronic detection, intelligent sensing, and high-performance field-effect transistors. However, the lack of precise control during synthesis make them difficult to obtain the high-purity semiconducting SWCNTs (~99.9999%) required for many applications, particularly in high-performance electronics.

This review, from the perspective of close integration and mutual promotion between theory and experiment, comprehensively outlines the history and the latest theoretical and experimental progress in the growth mechanism and selective synthesis of SWCNTs over the past 35 years. The main contents include: (i) SWCNT growth mechanisms, (ii) molecular simulations of SWCNT growth, (iii) selective SWCNT growth based on catalyst design, (iv) the influence of growth environments on selectivity, and (v) SWCNT cloning. This review outlines the major challenges in achieving selective and controllable growth of SWCNTs and proposes ultimately viable solutions, thereby providing a roadmap for the research of SWCNT growth over the next decade.

(Source: School of Materials Science and Engineering)