Meter-Long Spiral Carbon Nanotube Fibers Show Ultrauniformity and Flexibility.

Conventional straight fibers spun from carbon nanotubes have rather limited deformability; creating a spiral structure holds the promise to break this shape restriction and enhance structural flexibility. Here, we report up to one meter-length threads containing purely single-walled nanotubes twisted into spiral loops (about 1.3 × 10(5) loops per meter) with tunable fiber diameters and electrical conductivity. Because of significant increase of the loop number and long-range homogeneity, the fibers display many unique properties (e.g., self-shrinking and forming extremely entangled structure, fast stretching with great resilience, large-degree axial and lateral deflection, and excellent fatigue resistance) that are difficult to achieve in straight yarns or short helical segments. They also have potential applications as macroscopic fiber-shaped temperature sensors and deformable gas sensors. Our long spiral fibers may be configured into versatile structures such as nanotextiles for developing wearable electronics and multifunctional fabrics.

[1]  Kong,et al.  Nanotube molecular wires as chemical sensors , 2000, Science.

[2]  W. D. de Heer,et al.  Carbon Nanotubes--the Route Toward Applications , 2002, Science.

[3]  P. Poulin,et al.  Macroscopic fibers and ribbons of oriented carbon nanotubes. , 2000, Science.

[4]  Menghe Miao,et al.  Electrical conductivity of pure carbon nanotube yarns , 2011 .

[5]  Junhong Chen,et al.  Room‐Temperature Gas Sensing Based on Electron Transfer between Discrete Tin Oxide Nanocrystals and Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes , 2009 .

[6]  Boris I. Yakobson,et al.  Can carbon nanotube fibers achieve the ultimate conductivity?—Coupled-mode analysis for electron transport through the carbon nanotube contact , 2013 .

[7]  Dai-Wen Pang,et al.  Effectively and efficiently dissecting the infection of influenza virus by quantum-dot-based single-particle tracking. , 2012, ACS nano.

[8]  Xiaodong He,et al.  Super‐Stretchable Spring‐Like Carbon Nanotube Ropes , 2012, Advanced materials.

[9]  Carter S. Haines,et al.  Electrically, Chemically, and Photonically Powered Torsional and Tensile Actuation of Hybrid Carbon Nanotube Yarn Muscles , 2012, Science.

[10]  Shoushan Fan,et al.  Nanotechnology: Spinning continuous carbon nanotube yarns , 2002, Nature.

[11]  J. Wang,et al.  High-strength carbon nanotube fibre-like ribbon with high ductility and high electrical conductivity , 2014, Nature Communications.

[12]  Shanyi Du,et al.  Self-stretchable, helical carbon nanotube yarn supercapacitors with stable performance under extreme deformation conditions , 2015 .

[13]  Feng Gong,et al.  Intertwined aligned carbon nanotube fiber based dye-sensitized solar cells. , 2012, Nano letters.

[14]  Chen Chen,et al.  Twisting Carbon Nanotube Fibers for Both Wire‐Shaped Micro‐Supercapacitor and Micro‐Battery , 2013, Advanced materials.

[15]  Ya-Li Li,et al.  Direct Spinning of Carbon Nanotube Fibers from Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis , 2004, Science.

[16]  Huisheng Peng,et al.  A Cable‐Shaped Lithium Sulfur Battery , 2016, Advanced materials.

[17]  J. Lian,et al.  Highly thermally conductive and mechanically strong graphene fibers , 2015, Science.

[18]  Myung Jong Kim,et al.  Macroscopic, Neat, Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Fibers , 2002, Science.

[19]  Chunhui Huang,et al.  Porous, platinum nanoparticle-adsorbed carbon nanotube yarns for efficient fiber solar cells. , 2012, ACS nano.

[20]  D. Finlayson.  YARNS FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES—EFFECT OF FILAMENT SIZE , 1946 .

[21]  Shanyi Du,et al.  Highly twisted double-helix carbon nanotube yarns. , 2013, ACS nano.

[22]  Y. Cohen,et al.  Strong, Light, Multifunctional Fibers of Carbon Nanotubes with Ultrahigh Conductivity , 2013, Science.

[23]  Electron transport of nanotube-based gas sensors: An ab initio study , 2008 .

[24]  Xiaodong He,et al.  Overtwisted, resolvable carbon nanotube yarn entanglement as strain sensors and rotational actuators. , 2013, ACS nano.

[25]  Dingshan Yu,et al.  Scalable synthesis of hierarchically structured carbon nanotube–graphene fibres for capacitive energy storage , 2014, Nature Nanotechnology.

[26]  K. R. Atkinson,et al.  Multifunctional Carbon Nanotube Yarns by Downsizing an Ancient Technology , 2004, Science.

[27]  Xuemei Sun,et al.  Electrochromic Fiber‐Shaped Supercapacitors , 2014, Advanced materials.