Nano-composite materials and plasma-surface interactions

纳米复合材料和等离子体-表面相互作用我们的研究计划涉及复合材料的开发，该复合材料具有尺寸为数十纳米（10-50 nm）的组件，主要由碳纳米管（CNT）组成，在金属表面上生长为“CNT森林”。研究的一个重要方向是构建具有强烈增强的电子发射和传热能力的新一代表面。在我们的研究中，等离子体状态的使用很常见，无论是构建结构，化学改性表面，还是在极端条件下（如电弧）或在较温和的条件下（如荧光灯管照明应用）测试其作为电极的性能。目前正在制造和测试调谐碳纳米管阵列或局部三维电子发射体积形状的新表面。这些纳米级材料的应用领域进行了研究，如（a）能源部门的燃料电池和超级电容器（电动汽车），太阳能电池（“量子点阵列”）和高性能冷却表面，（B）纳米复合材料，例如聚合物（导电和高性能塑料）和碳纳米管-陶瓷复合材料（表面上的3D体积），和（c）微结构化学反应器（化学合成/去除，探测）。我们的碳纳米管“纳米森林”和“纳米毡”的两个关键方面是（1）直接从金属基底材料中提取纳米管，以这种方式为使用电极或传感器的各种系统提供非常好的表面，以及（2）我们建模和设计优化电子发射和等离子体产生的最佳CNT基模板的能力。

Nano-Composite Materials and Plasma-Surface InteractionsOur research program involves the development of composite materials having components with sizes in the tens of nanometers (10-50 nm) mainly composed of carbon nanotubes (CNT) growing as a "CNT forest" on metallic surfaces. One important orientation of the research is to build a new generation of surfaces having a strongly enhanced ability to emit electrons and to transfer heat. The use of the plasma state is common in our research either to build the structures, to modify chemically the surfaces, to test their properties as electrodes in extreme conditions such as electric arcs, or in milder conditions such as fluorescent tube lighting applications. New surfaces in the shape of tuned carbon nanotube arrays or local 3-dimensional electron emission volumes are presently being fabricated and tested. Applications of these nano-scale materials are studied in areas such as (a) the energy sector for fuel cells and supercapacitors (electric cars), solar cells ("quantum dots arrays"), and high performance cooling surfaces, (b) nano-composite materials such as polymers (conducting and high performance plastics) and carbon nanotube-ceramic composites (3-D volumes on surfaces), and (c) micro-structured chemical reactors (chemical synthesis/removal, probing). Two key aspects of our carbon nanotube "nano-forests" and "nano-felts" are (1) the extraction of the nanotubes directly from the metallic substrate material, making in this way a very good surface for various systems using electrodes or sensors, and (2) our ability to model and design optimal CNT-based templates optimizing electron emission and plasma generation.