An effective defect engineering strategy was presented for improving the intrinsic electrical conductivity of nanotube assemblies by thermally incorporating a large number of boron atoms into substitutional positions within the hexagonal framework of the tubes. It was confirmed that the defects introduced after vacuum ultra-violet and nitrogen plasma treatments facilitated the incorporation of a large number of boron atoms (about 0.496at%) occupying the trigonal sites on the tube side-walls during the boron doping process, thus eventually increasing the electrical conductivity of the carbon nanotube film.

Defect-Assisted Heavily and Substitutionally Boron-Doped Thin Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes using High-Temperature Thermal Diffusion. Y.A.Kim, S.Aoki, K.Fujisawa, Y.I.Ko, K.S.Yang, C.M.Yang, Y.C.Jung, T.Hayashi, M.Endo, M.Terrones, M.S.Dresselhaus: Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2014, 118[8], 4454-9