Examining Carbon Nanofibers: Properties, growth, and applications

One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly referred to as fil­a­men­tous carbon,carbon fil­a­ments, or car­bon whiskers. How­ev­er, it was only dur­ing the 1990s and 2000s with the demon­stra­tion of car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs)and the intro­duc­tion of cat­alyt­ic plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) that one-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures emerged as a promis­ing solu­tion for a large vari­ety of appli­ca­tions. In this arti­cle, car­bon nanofibers (CNFs), a par­tic­u­lar type of one-dimen­sion­al car­bon with unique prop­er­ties, are described, their growth is dis­cussed, and their main appli­ca­tions are presented.