Fabrication of novel nanotube-based hybrid materials and development of characterization of their structure and properties

利用碳纳米管的超薄一维纳米空间合成了原子纳米线。利用激光蒸发和化学气相沉积法制备的高质量、高纯度的碳纳米管是实现纳米管纳米空间内原子线形成的关键之一。合成的原子线的直径最细只有一个原子粗，是有史以来合成的世界上最细的原子线。在直径为两个原子厚度的原子线的情况下，我发现在室温下的透射电子显微镜观察中，发生了从锯齿结构到螺旋结构的可逆结构转变。除了合成新型的纳米碳材料外，我还开发了使用沟道穿透衬底的微间隙电极的表征技术，以详细阐明原子线的结构和性能之间的关系。利用这种方法，成功地对单个和特定的纳米管进行了原子结构的电子显微镜表征和器件特性的测量。

Atomic nanowires have been synthesized using ultra-thin 1-dimensional nanospace of carbon nanotubes. One of the key to achieve the formation of atomic wire inside nanotube nanospace is to use high quality and high purity carbon nanotubes synthesized by laser vaporization and chemical vapor deposition method. Synthesized atomic wires have a diameter of one atom thick at thinnest, which is the world thinnest wires among ever synthesized. In the case of atomic wires whose diameter is two-atom thick, I have found that the reversible structural transformation from zigzag structure and helical structure occurs during TEM observations at room temperature. In addition to synthesis of novel nanocarbon materials, I have developed characterization technique using micro-gap electrodes with channel penetrating though the substrate to elucidate correlation between structure and properties of atomic wires in detail. Using this method, atomic structure characterization using electron microscopy and device characteristics measurement on individual and specific nanotubes have been successfully carried out.