A Short, Rigid, Structurally Pure Carbon Nanotube by Stepwise Chemical Synthesis

The inaccessibility of uniform-diameter, single-chirality
carbon
nanotubes (CNTs) in pure form continues to thwart efforts by scientists
to use these ultrathin materials in innovative applications that could
revolutionize nanoscale electronics. Stimulated by the challenge to
address this long-standing problem, we and other organic chemists
have envisioned a new production strategy involving the controlled
elongation of small hydrocarbon templates, such as hemispherical nanotube
end-caps, prepared by bottom-up chemical synthesis; the diameter and
rim structure encoded in the template would dictate the diameter and
chirality of the resulting CNT. Toward that objective, a short [5,5]
CNT has now been synthesized by stepwise chemical methods. This C50H10 geodesic polyarene has been isolated, purified,
crystallized, and fully characterized by NMR spectroscopy, UV–vis
absorption spectroscopy, high resolution mass spectrometry, and X-ray
crystallography.