Highly dense and perfectly aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes fabricated by diamond wire drawing dies

We have developed a low-cost and effective method to align single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) using a series of diamond wire drawing dies. The obtained SWNTs are highly dense and perfectly aligned. X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicates that the highly dense and perfectly aligned SWNTs (HDPA-SWNTs) form a two-dimensional triangular lattice with a lattice constant of 19.62 A. We observe a sharp (002) reflection in the XRD pattern, which should be ascribed to an intertube spacing 3.39 A of adjacent SWNTs. Raman spectra reveal that the radical breath mode (RBM) of SWNTs with larger diameter in the HDPA-SWNTs is suppressed compared with that of as-grown SWNTs. The HDPA-SWNTs have a large density, approximately 1.09 g/cm 3, and a low resistivity, approximately 2 m Omega cm, at room temperature, as well as a large response to light illumination.