Sustained laser induced incandescence in carbon nanotubes for rapid localized heating

Abstract

Sustained laser-induced incandescence (LII) was observed when a continuous wave laser beam was focused on aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in vacuum. The sustained incandescence originated from radiative dissipation of heated CNTs due to laser-CNT interactions. Sustainability of the LII up to 2 h was achieved. Fittings of the LII intensity spectrum with Planck blackbody distribution indicate a rise of temperature from room temperature to ∼2500 K in less than 0.1 s. This provides an effective way of achieving rapid high temperature heating at specific localized positions within CNT arrays. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.