ABSTRACT

A variety of nanomaterials have been synthesized by many researchers using anodic aluminum oxide film as either a template or a host material: e.g., magnetic recording media (13,14), optical devices (15-18), metal nanohole arrays (19), and nanotubes or nanofibers of polymer, metal and metal oxide (20-24). No one, however, had tried to use anodic aluminum oxide film to produce carbon nanotubes before Kyotani et al. (9,12), Parthasarathy et al. (10) and Che et al. (25) prepared carbon tubes by either the pyrolytic carbon deposition on the film or the carbonization of organic polymer in the pore of the film. The following section describes the details of the template method for carbon nanotube production.