Length fractionation of carbon nanotubes using centrifugation

Scalable separation of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs)by length and chirality is critical to the adaptation of these materials for applications. Ultracentrifugation of SWCNTs within a density gradient produces chiral separation of the NTs, and it is shown here that ultracentrifugation can also be used to produce length fractionated SWCNTs by exploiting their transient motion in response to applied centripetal acceleration.