Wet-Chemistry-Assisted Nanotube-Substitution Reaction for High-Efficiency and Bulk-Quantity Synthesis of Boron- and Nitrogen-Codoped Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

We present an innovative wet-chemistry-assisted nanotube-substitution reaction approach for the highly efficient synthesis of boron- and nitrogen-codoped single-walled carbon nanotubes (BxCyNz-SWNTs) in bulk quantities. The as-synthesized ternary system BxCyNz-SWNTs are of high purity and quality and have fairly homogeneous B and N dopant concentrations. Electrical transport measurements on SWNT-network thin-film transistors revealed that the BxCyNz-SWNTs were composed primarily of the semiconducting nanotubes, in contrast to the starting pristine C-SWNTs, which consisted of a heterogeneous mixture of both semiconducting and metallic types.