Polarity determined growth of carbon nanotubes of different alignments

Growing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of different alignments, including surface-bounded and vertically aligned arrays, on metallic electrodes was achieved by applying electric voltages of different polarities on metallic electrodes during the laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition process. Surface-bounded CNTs were found to crawl out from the positively charged electrodes. In contrary, vertically aligned CNTs dominated the negatively charged electrodes. The alignment control was ascribed to the movement of catalyst-nanoparticles (NPs) under the influence of external electric field. The surface-bounded CNTs were ascribed to the repulsive forces between the catalyst NPs and the anodes. The vertically aligned CNTs were ascribed to the joint interactions of catalyst-cathode interactions and tube-tube interactions. This investigation suggests a convenient approach to control the alignment of CNT arrays for applications in different fields.

[1]  Jing Kong,et al.  Electric-field-directed growth of aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes , 2001 .

[2]  Otto Zhou,et al.  Plasma-induced alignment of carbon nanotubes , 2000 .

[3]  A. Srivastava,et al.  Curious aligned growth of carbon nanotubes under applied electric field , 2001 .

[4]  R. Kalish,et al.  Growth of aligned carbon nanotubes by biasing during growth , 2001 .

[5]  R. Smalley,et al.  Growth Mechanism of Oriented Long Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes Using "Fast-Heating" Chemical Vapor Deposition Process , 2004 .

[6]  C. R. Martin,et al.  Carbon nanotubule membranes for electrochemical energy storage and production , 1998, Nature.

[7]  Q. Bao,et al.  Electric field induced growth of well aligned carbon nanotubes from ethanol flames , 2006, Nanotechnology.

[9]  Young Hee Lee,et al.  Synthesis of aligned carbon nanotubes using thermal chemical vapor deposition , 1999 .

[10]  R. Pease,et al.  Electric-field-directed growth of carbon nanotubes in two dimensions , 2004 .

[11]  Riichiro Saito,et al.  Raman spectroscopy of carbon nanotubes , 2005 .

[12]  Qiaoqin Yang,et al.  Growth mechanism and orientation control of well-aligned carbon nanotubes , 2003 .

[13]  Xu-Ming Xie,et al.  Gas flow directed assembly of carbon nanotubes into horizontal arrays , 2007 .

[14]  Yongfeng Lu,et al.  Direct synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes bridging metal electrodes by laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition , 2006 .

[15]  H. Dai,et al.  Self-oriented regular arrays of carbon nanotubes and their field emission properties , 1999, Science.

[16]  B. Gu,et al.  Electronic structure and field-emission characteristics of open-ended single-walled carbon nanotubes. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[17]  Rusli,et al.  Field emission from patterned carbon nanotube emitters produced by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition , 2001 .

[18]  John Robertson,et al.  Growth process conditions of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition , 2001 .

[19]  R. L. Wal,et al.  Diffusion flame synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes , 2000 .

[20]  F. Hong,et al.  Low-temperature growth and field emission of aligned carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition , 2001 .

[21]  Y. S. Zhou,et al.  Self-aligned growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes using optical near-field effects , 2009, Nanotechnology.

[22]  Shin-Shem Pei,et al.  Mechanism of horizontally aligned growth of single-wall carbon nanotubes on R-plane sapphire. , 2006, The journal of physical chemistry. B.