Formation of single-wall carbon nanotube superbundles

Carbon single-wall nanotubes (SWNTs) are of great interest because of their expected novel electronic, mechanical, and adsorption properties. However, to test these properties and develop applications, it is necessary to isol ate large aligned nanotube bundles, Here we demonstrate that SWNT samples m ay be converted from seemingly endless 10-20 nm wide bundles into agglomera tions of aligned nanotube bundles 0.4-1 mu m in diameter and 5-10 mu m in l ength A transmission electron microscope image of an isolated "superbundle" is shown.