Hiromichi Kataura

Hiromichi Kataura ) is a Japanese scientist well known for his work on synthesis and characterization of single-wall and double-wall ["Optical Characterization of Double-wall Carbon Nanotubes: Evidence for Inner Tube Shielding" [http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp8018414 J. Phys. Chem. C 112 (2008) 11194] ] ["IR-Extended Photoluminescence Mapping of Single-Wall and Double-Wall Carbon Nanotubes" [http://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fjp062653t J. Phys. Chem. B 110 (2006) 17420] ] carbon nanotubes and on encapsulation of water, ["Water-filled single-wall carbon nanotubes as molecular nanovalves" Nature Materials 6 (2007) 135] fullerene and other organic molecules ["Imaging the dynamic behaviour of individual retinal chromophores confined inside carbon nanotubes" [http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v2/n7/abs/nnano.2007.187.html Nature Nanotechnology 2 (2007) 422] ] ["Stable and controlled amphoteric doping by encapsulation of organic molecules inside carbon nanotubes" [http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nmat/journal/v2/n10/abs/nmat976.html Nature Materials 2 (2003) 683] ] ["Photosensitive Function of Encapsulated Dye in Carbon Nanotubes" [http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja067351j J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129 (2007) 4992] ] ["Light-harvesting function of b-carotene inside carbon nanotubes" [http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v74/e155420 Phys. Rev. B 74 (2006) 155420] ] into carbon nanotubes.

Dr. Kataura is the leader of Self-assembled nano-electronics group at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).

Kataura plot

Kataura is a graph relating the energy of the band gaps in carbon nanotube and its diameter, originally proposed by Kataura. A nanotube of certain diameter can be metallic M or semiconducting S and has several band gaps, conventionally labeled as S₁₁, S₂₂, M₁₁, M₂₂, etc. This property results in multiple branches in the Kataura plot.

Interestingly, the original paper presenting the Kataura plot ["Optical Properties of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes" [http://staff.aist.go.jp/h-kataura/Kataura-Synth-Met-103-2555.pdf Synthetic Metals 103 (1999) 2555] "free download"] has been published in a lesser-known journal Synthetic Metals. Nevertheless, between 2000 and 2008 this paper has been cited more than 650 times in refereed journals.

References

Links

* [http://staff.aist.go.jp/h-kataura/kataurae.html Web page of Dr. H. Kataura]
* [http://reizei.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~maruyama/nanotube.html Prof. Shigeo Maruyama - Kataura plot calculations]

ee also

*Carbon nanotube
*Optical properties of carbon nanotubes