Effects of catalyst film thickness on plasma-enhanced carbon nanotube growth
- Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ (United Kingdom)
A systematic study is presented of the influence of catalyst film thickness on carbon nanostructures grown by plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition from acetylene and ammonia mixtures. We show that reducing the Fe/Co catalyst film thickness below 3 nm causes a transition from larger diameter (>40 nm), bamboolike carbon nanofibers to small diameter ({approx}5 nm) multiwalled nanotubes with two to five walls. This is accompanied by a more than 50 times faster growth rate and a faster catalyst poisoning. Thin Ni catalyst films only trigger such a growth transition when pretreated with an ammonia plasma. We observe a limited correlation between this growth transition and the coarsening of the catalyst film before deposition. For a growth temperature of {<=}550 deg. C, all catalysts showed mainly a tip growth regime and a similar activity on untreated silicon, oxidized silicon, and silicon nitride support.
- OSTI ID:
- 20714029
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 98, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.1989432; (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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