Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
Carbon nanotube turfs are collections of nanotubes in a turf or mat assembly with potential application as thermal switches, flat panel displays, hard drives, sensors, etc. The nano-topology of the turf necessarily relates to the turf properties; electrical, thermal, optical, etc. A simple method to quantitatively characterize the density, tortuosity and path connectedness of the turfs using secondary electron imaging was previously developed. The present work aims at developing the groundwork for a more realistic measure of tortuosity by using a deterministic approach to obtain the radii of semi-circular tubes as observed in projected images.