Local Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes in Silicon Microsystems: The Effect of Temperature Distribution on Growth Structure

Materials (Basel). 2013 Jul 26;6(8):3160-3170. doi: 10.3390/ma6083160.

Abstract

Local synthesis and direct integration of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into microsystems is a promising method for producing CNT-based devices in a single step, low-cost, and wafer-level, CMOS/MEMS-compatible process. In this report, the structure of the locally grown CNTs are studied by transmission imaging in scanning electron microscopy-S(T)EM. The characterization is performed directly on the microsystem, without any post-synthesis processing required. The results show an effect of temperature on the structure of CNTs: high temperature favors thin and regular structures, whereas low temperature favors "bamboo-like" structures.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes; defects; disorder; local synthesis; scanning transmission electron microscopy.