Low Temperature Synthesis of Extremely Dense and Vertically Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

A novel point-arc microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) apparatus was employed to grow single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on Si substrates coated with a sandwich-like nano-layer structure of 0.7 nm Al 2 O 3 (top)/0.5 nm Fe/5–70 nm Al 2 O 3 by conventional high frequency sputtering. The growth of extremely dense and vertically aligned SWNTs with an almost constant growth rate of 270 µm/h within 40 min at a temperature as low as 600°C was demonstrated for the first time. The volume density of the as-grown SWNT films is as higher as 66 kg/m 3 .