It is worth mentioning, however, that at the beginning, the electrostatic

forces between CNTs are responsible for the formation of the CNT cones structure because sometimes the nanospheres are too small to be able to link the nearby CNTs just by wetting, which was observed in other works also [25]. The described mechanism is the most realistic due to another reason since there is no clear periodicity of the shape of the Fe/CNT nanostructures like, for example, in the case of ‘black silicon’ where the cone formation is governed by the selleckchem initial ripple creation with the wavelength close to the central wavelength of the incident laser [7]. Conclusions In the present work, we investigated for the first time the interaction of FSL irradiation with the arrays of vertically aligned carbon PXD101 price nanotubes intercalated with the ferromagnetic (Fe phase) nanoparticles. selleck The presence of metal nanoparticles in CNT array plays the main role in the energy absorption by the array. As a result of such interaction, a novel composite nanostructured material was obtained. This nanomaterial consists of tiny Fe phase nanospheres attached to the tips of the CNT bundles of conical shape. We designated this material as Fe phase nanosphere/conical CNT bundle nanostructures. The mechanism of such nanostructure formation was proposed.

The importance of the present investigation is defined by the possible applications of the obtained results. The arrays of CNTs with the intercalated ferromagnetic nanoparticles, i.e., MFCNTs, may be considered as an ideal medium for different magnetic applications. The FSL irradiation may become an instrument for the machining of the mentioned devices based on the arrays of MFCNTs. Moreover, one could expect that the obtained nanostructures would Methane monooxygenase possess new optical properties which would find applications in photovoltaics and plasmonics. Acknowledgements We thank the Head of the Government Center ‘BelMicroAnalysis’ (scientific and technical center ‘Belmicrosystems’) V. Pilipenko for the access to SEM facilities (Hitachi S-4800 FE-SEM). We are grateful

to J. Fedotova and K. Yanushkevich for providing Mössbauer spectroscopy and XRD diffraction measurements of CNT arrays, correspondingly. References 1. Crouch CH, Carey JE, Warrender JM, Aziz MJ, Mazur E, Génin FY: Comparison of structure and properties of femtosecond and nanosecond laser-structured silicon. Appl Phys Lett 2004, 84:1850–1852.CrossRef 2. Shen M, Crouch C, Carey J, Mazur E: Femtosecond laser-induced formation of submicrometer spikes on silicon in water. Appl Phys Lett 2004, 85:5694–5696.CrossRef 3. Carey JE, Crouch CH, Shen M, Mazur E: Visible and near-infrared responsivity of femtosecond-laser microstructured silicon photodiodes. Opt Let 2005, 30:1773–1775.CrossRef 4. Carey JE III: Femtosecond-laser microstructuring of silicon for novel optoelectronic devices. Harvard University Cambridge: The Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences; 2004.