The best fit obtained for our data was for d = 1, consistent with a dominant 1D electronic transport mechanism in our samples. Figure 6 shows a plot of the natural logarithm of G as a function of T −1/2; the experimental data

shows a linear dependence for almost the complete temperature range. By fitting the function in Equation 1, with d = 1, to the average data curve from sample CNTs_(AAO/650°C), a value of T 0  ≈ 4.4 × 103 K is obtained. For samples CNTs-A and Au-CNTs-B, the values of T 0 from the fit of the average data were ≈ 4.4 × 103 K and ≈ 5.0 × 103 K, respectively. These results are in agreement with Wang et al.’s report [52], in which a 1D dependence within the VRH model is found for CNTs prepared using alumina templates. Although the values selleck inhibitor obtained for T 0 are similar in all three samples, the inclusion of gold nanoparticles implies a larger value for T 0. This is consistent with SCH772984 the fact that forming the gold nanoparticles by drop-casting (T 0 ≈ 5.0 × 103 K) produces noticeable modifications to the tubular structure of the CNTs compared to those generated through dip-coating (T 0 ≈ 4.4 × 103 K). As an example, several locations in which these changes occur have been indicated by arrows in

Figure 1c. Figure 6 indicates that the inclusion of gold nanoparticles by drop-casting modifies the electronic transport below 60 K (see the curve with red open circle markers in Figure 6). In this low temperature range, only sample Au-CNTs-B exhibit the 1D hopping process, while the other two show a residual metallic behavior, inferred from the tendency to display a constant conductance. In the case of sample Au-CNTs-B, the residual metallic Oxalosuccinic acid behavior of the conductance

is almost non-existent and the VRH model can be extended to very low temperatures to account for the observed behavior. This result is consistent with the fact that the walls of the Au-CNT-B tubes are completely distorted by the presence of AuNPs, as detected by TEM (Figure 1c), and causing the suppression of the metallic conduction. Figure 6 Plots of ln( G ) for the samples CNTs_(AAO/650°C), Au-CNTs-A, and Au-CNTs-B as a function of T −1/2 . In addition to the measured data (open symbols), illustrative error bars have been included for each sample. At this point, it is important to note that the transport measurements were performed using interdigitated microelectrodes, implying that conduction occurs through a mesh of CNTs between the electrode fingers (Figure 5c). Consequently, the interconnections between the CNTs need to be included in any model put forward to describe the Selleckchem GDC-0994 conductance in this system. To verify this issue, we prepared an additional sample, labeled as CNTs-2900 K. It contains CNTs with a high degree of graphitization. These tubes were synthesized in the same way described in Section 2.