Carbon Nanostructured Materials

In recent years, a lot of work has been focused on the synthesis of novel materials, clusters, and molecules which are unique in many ways. Numerous attempts to synthesize the theoretically predicted solids have been published. This chapter summarised the carbon materials in various forms; crystalline and non-crystalline. Carbon constitutes a class of new materials with a wide range of compositions, properties, and performance. Due to its unique optical and electrical properties, carbon has potential applications in vast fields especially in semiconductor devices. The structure and properties of the various crystalline carbon materials are reviewed. Related carbon based materials such as fullerenes, carbon fiber, glassy carbon, carbon black, amorphous carbon, diamond, graphite and buckminsterfullerene mentioned briefly as well as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The CNTs preparation and characterization methods are presented and discussed in depth. However, it can be stated that a fascinating new field in the area of carbon has been discovered, which gives motivation for further studies dedicated to fundamental questions as well as the exploitation of the novel materials for industrial applications.