Chirality dependent surface adhesion of single-walled carbon nanotubes on graphene surfaces

The adhesion of single-walled carbon nanotubes to the surface of graphene has been studied, mixing shortened tubes of different chiralities and few-graphene crystal membranes. The spontaneous atomic match of the two lattices was directly imaged using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and carefully analyzed by means of electron diffraction, and we found evidences that surfaces of few-graphene crystal act as tangential nano-sieves, preferentially retaining zig-zag tubes to their surface. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.