Growth of carbon nanotubes on patterned silicon wafer by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD)

Since Iijima discovered carbon nanotubes in 1991, its excellent mechanical, chemical, and other properties attract many scientists do related researches. In order to apply it into different fields successfully, how to grow up uniformed and quality carbon nanotubes become an important issue. In this thesis, carbon nanotubes are grown up on the patterned silicon wafer by thermal chemical vapor deposition. Adjust the processing conditions which include temperature, gas flow, catalyst thickness and time in each experiment to find out the better recipe for growing carbon nanotubes. The Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) images present the best conditions in this experiment are: 700°C reaction temperature, 10 minutes pretreatment, less than 6 nm catalyst thickness, and short reaction time.