Structural and Optical properties of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Modified by DBD Plasma at Atmospheric Pressure

Norain Sahari (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia)
Zolkafle Buntat (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia)
Zulkifli Azman (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia)
Zainuddin Nawawi (Universitas Sriwijaya)
Muhammad Abu Bakar Sidik (Universitas Sriwijaya)
Muhammad Irfan Jambak (Universitas Sriwijaya)

TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control)
Vol 16, No 1: February 2018

Structure, chemical, and physical properties of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) after modification by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure is investigated using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Raman and Uv-vis-NIR spectroscopy. Effects of plasma treatment time on MWCNTs are analyzed. TEM result shows that during the short period of plasma treatment time of 5 minutes, the tube surface experienced a few damages. With increase in plasma treatment time, the tube surface is damaged to a certain extent. Intensity ratio, ID/IG through Raman analysis shows a good agreement with TEM. The values of ID/IG of the modified MWCNTs are larger than those of pristine MWCNTs. An increase of ID/IG indicates that considerable defects are produced on the surfaces of MWCNTs. The treated MWCNTs has energy band gap compared to zero band gap of untreated MWCNTs. It is believed that the defect site of MWCNTs can modify the electronics properties of MWCNTs from being metallic to semiconducting structure, which is applicable for almost all electronics device applications.