There are several well-established methods for generating single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). One of these uses laser vaporization of a composite carbon/transition metal catalyst target in an inert gas at elevated temperatures. This method produces single-walled carbon nanotubes with unusually high efficiency (relative to evaporated carbon) and unusually low defect density. We use it to generate SWNTs for a large part of the spectroscopic and separations work carried out in our group at the Campus North Location.

"Single-wall Carbon Nanotubes with Diameters Approaching 6 nm Obtained by Laser Vaporization", S. Lebedkin, P. Schweiss, B. Renker, S. Malik, F. Hennrich, M. Neumaier, C. Stoermer and M. M. Kappes, Carbon, 2002, 40, 417-423.