Templated growth and characterization of carbon nanotubes for nanofluidic applications

Nanofluidics deals with the static and dynamic behavior of fluids at the nanoscale. Fundamental nanofluidic studies are focused on understanding whether continuum fluid mechanics equations hold at the nanoscale and whether there is a threshold dimension below which they no longer apply. Device fabrication focuses on developing integrated systems capable of handling attoliter (10-18 liter) or less of fluid for applications ranging from single molecule detection in biology to microchip cooling. Interest in nanofluidic increased with more widespread availability of carbon nanotubes (CNT), which appeared to have the ideal characteristics for this kind of studies. Prior to the development and commercial application of nanotube-based devices, the mechanisms of nanofluidic phenomena, liquid interaction and transport within the internal cavity of carbon nanotubes has to be better understood. The proposed PhD research is dedicated to the development of carbon nanotubes with geometry, wall structure and chemistry, and properties optimized for fluidic applications, as wells as understanding the liquid-carbon interactions. The results obtained will be applied to control the flow of fluids through nanotubes. These nanotubes will be used as building blocks of nanofluidic devices.