Slow Dynamics in Localized Heating of Carbon Nanotube Forests

Understanding the long-term behavior of one-dimensional nanostructures at high temperatures is important for various applications ranging from thermionic emission to chemical sensing. We demonstrate unusually slow temperature decay and recovery occurring in carbon nanotube forests under strongly localized heating to above 1500 K. Through a combination of pyrometry, residual gas analysis, and computational heat transfer modeling, this phenomenon is connected to slow diffusion and desorption of adsorbed species occurring within the forest, highlighting internal mass transport properties that may be useful for nanoengineering purposes.