Visualization and investigation of Si–C covalent bonding of single carbon nanotube grown on silicon substrate

Abstract

It has been predicted that the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be dramatically tuned by forming Si–C bonds with a silicon surface. Thus, the realization of Si–C bonds will broaden future applications of CNTs on nanodevices. In this paper, we use micro-Raman imaging and spectroscopy to investigate the interaction between individual CNTs and silicon substrate. We show that covalent bonds were formed between certain CNTs and the substrate, and visualized such Si-CNT bonds using micro-Raman imaging. Polarized Raman results further reveal that the Si–C bonds are arranged orderly along the long axis of the Si-CNT. We thus show that Raman imaging is a very useful technique to study properties of such Si-CNTs.