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- As of October, 2007,
Dr. Ci has authored and co-authored over 80 publications
in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, given over 20 conference
presentations,
and has 1 French patent, 1 international patent, and 1 US patents
pending.
- As of Feb. 6 2007,
Dr. Ci’s papers have been cited over 828 times.
- For the
first time, the fatigue behaviour of carbon nanotube arrays
subject to cyclic stress was reported (Nature
Nanotechnology, 2007). Under
repeated high compressive strains, long, vertically aligned multiwalled
nanotube exhibit viscoelastic behaviour similar to that observed in
soft-tissue
membranes, and no fatigue failure is observed at high strain amplitude
up to
half a million cycles. This combination of soft-tissue-like behaviour
and outstanding
fatigue resistance suggests that properly engineered nanotube
structures could
mimic artificial tissues.
-
Created synthetic carbon
nanotube “gecko tape” by mimicking
the real agile gecko (Proceeding
of the National
Academy
of Sciences, 2007).
The “gecko tape”, which consists of the microfabricated aligned
multi-walled
carbon nanotube setaes and spatulas, is four times the sticking power
of the
real thing. The research has been highlighted by major professional
media
sources.
- Fabricated
the blackest carbon nanotube forest. The light reflectance
from the
surface of our carbon nanotube forest is only 0.045%, which is about
three
times lower than the blackest man-made material recorded in 2004
Guinness Book of World Records. A US
patent has been filed
based on the technique. Application of new Guinness World
Record was
submitted. This discovery is important for improving solar energy
conversion,
gravitational wave detection, and military low observation stealth
technologies.
- Fabricated
the lightest freestanding
large-diameter double-walled carbon nanotube forest. (Journal
of Physics Chemistry C,
2007) This technique has been developed to fabricate ultra-thick
freestanding carbon nanotube films. These freestanding nanotube films
were used
directly to fabricate electrochemical double layer capacitors, and also
to
create super-hydrophobic surfaces, suggesting promise for applications
such as
energy storage and filtration membranes. Very large-diameter
double-walled carbon nanotube forests have been selectively
synthesized, and
the forests have remarkable low mass density of 15 mg/cm3, a
value
close to that of the lightest man-made solid materials recorded in 2005
Guinness Book of World Records. These nanotube forests are the lowest
nanotube
block ever grown.
- Electrochemically
controlling transport of
water through carbon nanotube membranes. (Nano
letters, 2007) The controllable
nano-fluidic pumping through nanotube membranes will have major
applications in
biotechnology, lab-on-chip devices, and nano-fluidic plumbing systems,
which
may be designed to controllably move and manipulate the flow of very
small
volumes of aqueous liquids precisely both in space and time.
- Growing
carbon nanotube on conductive metal
substrate. (Nature
Nanotechnology, 2006) The existed growth techniques have only been
used
to grow nanotubes on substrates that are poor conductors of
electricity. Since
many of their applications are based on the superior conductivity of
carbon
nanotubes, good contact between nanotubes and conducting metal
components is
essential. As one of the project parters, our team has developed the
growth
technique, which will bring the use of nanotubes as interconnects on
computer
chips closer to reality.
- Position-controllable
growth of carbon
nanotubes on the surface of the well-established micro-scale particles
or
fibers, and created a new type of nano/micro-scale hybrid material, which will have wide
applications
in composites, electronic devices, etc. (Advanced Materials
2004, and
Carbon 2005). A French patent (No. 2867739)
and an international patent (WO
2005/075341 A2)
have been issued based on this technique. Following research by a US
group
created the world’s smallest brushes (a spot in 2007 Guinness Book of World
Records).
- Large-scale
production of single-walled
carbon nanotube nano-rings. (Advanced
Materials 2006, and Nanotechnology
2006) The nano-rings can be deposited with tunable densities on
different substrates at low temperatures, which is a remarkable
advantage for
potential applications. This low-temperature deposition process allows
for the
integration of the nano-rings with silicon and micro-electromechanical
systems,
paving the way for the investigation of transport phenomena through
annular
nanotube structures, and provides promising materials for building
nano-scale
electronic circuits. A publication, Nanowerk,
selected this work as one of the hot research spots.
- Selectively
producing single-walled carbon
nanotubes and double-walled carbon nanotubes. (Chemical
Physics Letters, 2001
and 2002) This technique can be used for industrial mass-production
of
double-walled carbon nanotubes. The work is one of the earliest
selective
synthesis works on double-walled carbon nanotubes by the chemical vapor
deposition method, and has had a good citation record (59 times as of
May, 2007).
- Developed
a technique for producing carbon nanotubes on a large scale. The floating catalyst
chemical
vapor deposition technique has high productivity due to its continuous
production, and therefore has potential industrial applications (Carbon
2000). Following this work, our group has produced the longest
single
walled carbon nanotube strands by the same experimental equipment (Zhu,
et al. Science 2002),
and in 2004, another group in England has directly spun out CNT fibers
from the
growth reactor by the similar process (Li, et al. Science
2004).
- Dr. Ci has been awarded
the CNRS-K.C.Wong
research fellowship in France
in 2003 and the Alexander von
Humboldt research fellowship in Germany in 2004.
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