Carbon Powder

Boron Doped Carbon Nanotubes and MWCNTs are structurally similar and share extraordinary mechanical properties, but they differ in chemical, optical, and electrical properties. The efficiency, power consumption, and weight of these types of devices are directly related to the available materials, their crystalline defects, and the suitability of these materials in relation to their inherent band gap energy levels.

Boron Doped Carbon Nanotubes As such, the tunable optical property and impedance matching capability of BCN nanotubes can offer a number of new optical and electronic applications not currently available with either BNNTs or MWCNTs. Transistors require small band gap materials such as silicon to control the flow of current while photovoltaic cells operate by absorbing photons at the band gap of photoactive semiconductors to generate electricity.

Boron Doped Carbon Nanotubes are close analogues of carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), but composed of hexagonal B-N bonding networks. MWCNTs possess purely covalent C-C bonds; by comparison, the B-N bond has partial ionic character due to the differences in electronegativity of boron and nitrogen. As a result, BNNTs are electrically insulating with a band gap of ~5 – 6 eV,4-6 while MWCNTs can be metallic or semiconducting.

Boron Doped Carbon Nanotubes exhibit high chemical stability, thermal stability (up to 800ºC in air), excellent thermal conductivity, a very high Young’s modulus (up to 1.3 TPa), piezoelectricity, the ability to suppress thermal neutron radiation, and, as matted fabric, display superhydrophobicity. These intriguing properties render BNNTs as ideal candidates for a variety of applications such as protective shields/capsules, mechanical and/or thermal reinforcements for polymer, ceramic, and metallic composites, self-cleaning materials, and biology/medicine.

Boron Doped Carbon Nanotubes The conductivity of other carbon materials is strongly affected by doping. Doping with alkali metals enhances the conductivity of graphite and fullerenes, resulting in superconductivity. Diamond has been found to become superconductor after it undergoes a metal-insulator transition by boron doping, even though undoped diamond is an insulator. The CNT crystal structure is intermediate between that of two-dimensional graphite and three-dimensional diamond. Considering these properties, we speculated that introduced elemental boron in CNTs would enhance their conductivity.