Patterning polyethylene oligomers on carbon nanotubes using physical vapor deposition

Periodic patterning on one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is of great interest from both scientific and technological points of view. In this letter, we report using a facile physical vapor deposition method to achieve periodic polyethylene (PE) oligomer patterning on individual CNTs. Upon heating under vacuum, PE degraded into oligomers and crystallized into rod-shaped single crystals. These PE rods periodically decorate on CNTs with their long axes perpendicular to the CNT axes. The formation mechanism was attributed to "soft epitaxy" growth of PE oligomer crystals on CNTs. Both SWNTs and MWNTs were decorated successfully with PE rods. The intermediate state of this hybrid structure, MWNTs absorbed with a thin layer of PE, was captured successfully by depositing PE vapor on MWNTs detached from the solid substrate, and was observed using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, this hybrid structure formation depends critically on CNT surface chemistry: alkane-modification of the MWNT surface prohibited the PE single-crystal growth on the CNTs. We anticipate that this work could open a gateway for creating complex CNT-based nanoarchitectures for nanodevice applications.