5 Enabling Materials By Dimensionality: From 0D to 3D Carbon-Based. . .
193
After having discussed the marvellous properties that carbon nanomaterials
acquire by moving up the dimensionality ladder, we believe meaningful to provide
an outlook about the foreseeable impact that over the next decades carbon-based
materials can have in defining the reach and applications of nanotechnology. Indeed,
the versatility of carbon to make bonds with itself and also other chemical elements
with different hybridization levels represents the most striking feature which allows
to use it in different technological scenarios. In the last three decades, starting
from the discovery of fullerenes, carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene and other 2D
materials, we have been flush with novel ideas and innumerable attempts to find
the killer applications for these remarkable nanostructures. For example, nearly
two decades of research in graphene fundamental properties have landed potential
influence on longer-lasting batteries, more efficient solar cells, transparent and
wearable faster electronics, novel LCD and OLED display panels, data storage
devices as well as novel approaches to electrochemical sensing in medicinal
technologies or to reinforcing composite matrices to enhance their mechanical
properties. Significant breakthrough in our everyday life can also come from
the revival of CNT-based technologies, such as in the production of transparent
electrodes due to their high conductivity, which allows the construction of ultra-thin
films (1–100 nm). Additionally, one can exploit CNTs for solving environmental
issues due to their promising catalytic properties, such as in pollution remediation,
and energy-related problems, such as in the search for alternative energy sources to
replace the use of fossil fuels or the production of H 2 via water splitting due to the
large number of active adsorption sites.
Nevertheless, we notice that so far, despite the many worldwide efforts to
advance carbon-based technology by using CNT or graphene, very few real-world
applications benefit from the potential that these materials display. This still missing
carbon revolution to replace silicon as the material of the future electronics seems
to be due to factors such as mass production and sample quality. For example,
the requirement of large-area, defect-free, grain boundary-free, monocrystalline
graphene to date has not been yet achieved. Furthermore, the question of whether
CNTs and graphene are the right choices for mechanical reinforcement still remains
largely unanswered, basically due to adhesion issues at the interface. Nevertheless,
with the great deal of interest in carbon-based technologies, it would not be
surprising if the first commercially available applications could be already found in
the next decade timeframe. Still, we believe that what makes CNTs and graphene so
special is beyond their technological applications, as they represent a paradigm of a
new class of mono- and bi-dimensional materials, whose discovery and study clearly
date from its synthesis. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity, the electronic
structure and the optical properties of carbon-based materials can be easily tuned by
heteroatom doping in order to adjust their electron mobility, charge transfer capacity
and optical response. For example, due to the potential applications as a basic unit
of a quantum computer, in quantum cryptography, spintronics and masers, recently
nitrogen-vacancy centre (N-V centre) in diamond gained a lot of attention in the
scientific community. Indeed, its most investigated and potentially useful property
is photoluminescence, which can be easily detected from an individual N-V centre.
193
After having discussed the marvellous properties that carbon nanomaterials
acquire by moving up the dimensionality ladder, we believe meaningful to provide
an outlook about the foreseeable impact that over the next decades carbon-based
materials can have in defining the reach and applications of nanotechnology. Indeed,
the versatility of carbon to make bonds with itself and also other chemical elements
with different hybridization levels represents the most striking feature which allows
to use it in different technological scenarios. In the last three decades, starting
from the discovery of fullerenes, carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene and other 2D
materials, we have been flush with novel ideas and innumerable attempts to find
the killer applications for these remarkable nanostructures. For example, nearly
two decades of research in graphene fundamental properties have landed potential
influence on longer-lasting batteries, more efficient solar cells, transparent and
wearable faster electronics, novel LCD and OLED display panels, data storage
devices as well as novel approaches to electrochemical sensing in medicinal
technologies or to reinforcing composite matrices to enhance their mechanical
properties. Significant breakthrough in our everyday life can also come from
the revival of CNT-based technologies, such as in the production of transparent
electrodes due to their high conductivity, which allows the construction of ultra-thin
films (1–100 nm). Additionally, one can exploit CNTs for solving environmental
issues due to their promising catalytic properties, such as in pollution remediation,
and energy-related problems, such as in the search for alternative energy sources to
replace the use of fossil fuels or the production of H 2 via water splitting due to the
large number of active adsorption sites.
Nevertheless, we notice that so far, despite the many worldwide efforts to
advance carbon-based technology by using CNT or graphene, very few real-world
applications benefit from the potential that these materials display. This still missing
carbon revolution to replace silicon as the material of the future electronics seems
to be due to factors such as mass production and sample quality. For example,
the requirement of large-area, defect-free, grain boundary-free, monocrystalline
graphene to date has not been yet achieved. Furthermore, the question of whether
CNTs and graphene are the right choices for mechanical reinforcement still remains
largely unanswered, basically due to adhesion issues at the interface. Nevertheless,
with the great deal of interest in carbon-based technologies, it would not be
surprising if the first commercially available applications could be already found in
the next decade timeframe. Still, we believe that what makes CNTs and graphene so
special is beyond their technological applications, as they represent a paradigm of a
new class of mono- and bi-dimensional materials, whose discovery and study clearly
date from its synthesis. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity, the electronic
structure and the optical properties of carbon-based materials can be easily tuned by
heteroatom doping in order to adjust their electron mobility, charge transfer capacity
and optical response. For example, due to the potential applications as a basic unit
of a quantum computer, in quantum cryptography, spintronics and masers, recently
nitrogen-vacancy centre (N-V centre) in diamond gained a lot of attention in the
scientific community. Indeed, its most investigated and potentially useful property
is photoluminescence, which can be easily detected from an individual N-V centre.