A scientometric comparative study of single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes research

In the present study, we aim to quantitatively investigate and compare the intellectual landscapes of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) research between 2000 and 2014. The overall intellectual structure of these fields is illustrated by emerging trends of bursting keywords and thematic concentrations of co-cited references. This study is based on two sets of bibliographic records retrieved from the Web of Science database. The SWCNTs dataset contains 18,700 original research and review articles. The MWCNTs dataset, consisting of 23,584 records, is also collected from the database. We find that both domains have scrutinized chemical concepts which underlie the properties of the materials. Recent thematic trends show that MWCNTs research focuses on the improvement of the material while SWCNTs research lays more emphasis on their applications. In conclusion, it is argued that SWCNTs and MWCNTs have co-evolved. At the same time, both fields are distinctively diverging with their own scientific concerns.