Structural properties of carbon nanotubes: The effect of substrate-biasing

기판 바이어스에 따른 탄소 나노튜브의 구조적 물성

Both negative and positive substrate bias effects on the structural properties and field-emission characteristics are investigated. carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are grown on Ni catalysts employing an inductively-coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (ICP-CVD) method. Characterization using various techniques, such as field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Auger spectroscopy (AES), and Raman spectroscopy, shows that the physical dimension as well as the crystal quality of CNTs grown can be changed and controlled by the application of substrate bias during CNT growth. It is for the first time observed that the prevailing growth mechanism of CNTs, which is either due to tip-driven growth or based-on-catalyst growth, may be influenced by substrate biasing. It is also seen that negative biasing would be more effectively role in the vertical-alignment of CNTs compared to positive biasing. However, the CNTs grown under the positively bias condition display much better electron emission capabilities than those grown under negative bias or without bias. The reasons for all the measured data regarding the structural properties of CNTs are discussed to confirm the correlation with the observed field-emissive properties.