1 China-Australia Joint Laboratory for Functional Nanomaterials, Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005 2 Jiujiang Research Institute, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005 3 Department of University Physics, College of Civil Engineering, Minnan University of Science and Technology, Shishi 362700
Abstract: Uniform electron beam irradiation induced amorphization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) was in-situ investigated by transmission electron microscopy at room temperature. It was observed that the graphite structure of the inner and outer layers of MWCNT began to break or collapse under the uniform electron beam irradiation, namely, the amorphization of the inner and outer layers of MWCNT carried out preferentially, and the inner layer held an obviously faster amorphization rate than the outer layer. Specially, the amorphization gradually advanced from the inner and outer layers to the middle layers as the prolonging of irradiation time. Meanwhile, the inner hollow of the tube was gradually filled by the broken or collapsed carbon atoms of inner layer, while the broken or collapsed carbon atoms of outer layer were partially evaporated into the space. Eventually, the inner hollow of the tube was fully filled by the amorphous carbon fragment, resulting in complete amorphization of the MWCNT. In addition, the outer diameter of the MWCNT was found to be almost unchanged throughout the process, which might be attributed to the compensation of volume expansion of the amorphization. The newly developed “evaporation” mechanism of carbon atoms derived on the basis of nano-curvature effect of carbon nanotube and the energetic beam-induced non-thermal activation effect was employed to give a novel and reasonable explanation of above mentioned amorphization of MWCNT.
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