Observation of Carbon Nanotube/Elastomer Composites by Atomic Force Microscopy

  • Niikura, Ayako (Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Nakajima, Ken (Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Fujinami, So (Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Ono, Michio (Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
  • Nishi, Toshio (Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
  • Published : 2006.10.13

Abstract

Natural rubbers (NR) reinforced by multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) was found to show extraordinary improvement of mechanical property. We speculated that this was owing to the interfacial phase that surrounded CNT and investigated about the phase by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Using force modulation mode and force-distance curve analyses, we succeeded in obtaining the information of its nanometer-scale rheological property. We found that was actually surrounded by the interfacial phase, that had softer modulus than NR matrix.

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