Single-wall carbon nanotube chemical attachment at platinum electrodes

Self-assembled monolayer (SAM) techniques were used to adsorb 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) on platinum electrodes in order to obtain an amino-terminated SAM as the base for the chemical attachment of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). A physico-chemical, morphological and electrochemical characterizations of SWCNTs attached onto the modified Pt electrodes was done by using reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and cyclic voltammetry (CV) techniques. The SWNTs/4-ATP/Pt surface had regions of small, medium, and large thickness of carbon nanotubes with heights of 100–200 nm, 700 nm to 1.5 μm, and 1.0–3.0 μm, respectively. Cyclic voltammetries (CVs) in sulfuric acid demonstrated that attachment of SWNTs on 4-ATP/Pt is markedly stable, even after 30 potential cycles. CV in ruthenium hexamine was similar to bare Pt electrodes, suggesting that SWNTs assembly is similar to a closely packed microelectrode array.