Bulmer, John S.Gspann, Thurid S.Orozco, FranciscoSparkes, MartinKoerner, HilmarDi Bernardo, A.Niemiec, ArkadiuszRobinson, J. W. A.Koziol, Krzysztof K. K.Elliott, James A.O’Neill, William2017-12-222017-12-222017-10-11Bulmer, JS.; Gspann TS.; Orozco F.; et. al. Photonic sorting of aligned, crystalline carbon nanotube textiles. Scientific Reports Vol. 7, Iss. 1, Article number: 129772045-2322http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12605-yhttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/12828Floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition uniquely generates aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) textiles with individual CNT lengths magnitudes longer than competing processes, though hindered by impurities and intrinsic/extrinsic defects. We present a photonic-based post-process, particularly suited for these textiles, that selectively removes defective CNTs and other carbons not forming a threshold thermal pathway. In this method, a large diameter laser beam rasters across the surface of a partly aligned CNT textile in air, suspended from its ends. This results in brilliant, localized oxidation, where remaining material is an optically transparent film comprised of few-walled CNTs with profound and unique improvement in microstructure alignment and crystallinity. Raman spectroscopy shows substantial D peak suppression while preserving radial breathing modes. This increases the undoped, specific electrical conductivity at least an order of magnitude to beyond that of single-crystal graphite. Cryogenic conductivity measurements indicate intrinsic transport enhancement, opposed to simply removing nonconductive carbons/residual catalyst.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Article