ABSTRACT
The first paper dealing with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was published in 1952 by Radushkevich et al. in Russian Magazine of Physical Chemistry [1]. In 1976, further papers by Endo et al. followed, which showed images of CNTs taken by electron microscopy [2]. But methods to reliably synthesize nanotubes were still not known at that time. Initially, the interest of many groups of researchers had been aroused by the paper published by Iijima et al. in 1991 in Nature, because Iijiama found nanotubes in carbon black produced by electric arc evaporation and, thus, simultaneously a way to produce them [3]. These nanotubes found in 1991 were multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and Iijiama further tried to fill them with
transition metals. Performing these experiments he [4] and Bethune et al. [5] published, independently from each other, the discovery and synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in 1993. Later, in 1996, Thess et al. introduced a synthesis based on a laser evaporation process that produces exclusively SWCNTs [6]. Hence, parallel to MWCNTs, SWCNTs have been a global subject of research activities, and efforts have been investigating their structure, physical properties, and synthesis. Particular properties of CNTs, as well as some applications, are stated in Chapter 8, which deals with the economical analysis of market opportunities for CNTs and nanodiamond by Werner et al.
