AVS 47th International Symposium
    Nanotubes - Science and Applications Tuesday Sessions
       Session NM+NS-TuM

Paper NM+NS-TuM1
Orientated Nanotube Growth with Cobalt Catalyst

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 8:20 am, Room 309

Session: Carbon Nanotubes: Synthesis
Presenter: S. Shah, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Authors: S. Shah, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
L. Rotkina, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
H. Choi, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
J.W. Lyding, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is an important area of research in the area of molecular nanotechnology. The full potential of these devices as a building block for nanometer scale structures has not been fully realized and therefore new processing techniques and observations could have impact on the field. This paper will focus on the main aspects of our cobalt catalyst based growth process as well as our observations of the resulting carbon nanotubes. We will then suggest some applications of this technique for the development in the area of nanometer scale research. With the purpose of observing the growth behavior on a Si(100) surface, we have grown carbon nanotubes by means of chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Two distinct types of growth orientations were observed on the surface using a cobalt based catalyst and methane gas as a source of carbon. The first is a series of catalyst islands that have nanotubes growing randomly from them. The patterning of these tubes seems to "bridge" islands of catalyst together. The second growth mechanism is cobalt silicide based, where orientation of both the silicide and carbon nanotubes, appears highly oriented. Growth of oriented CNTs on silicon is particularly important to integrate CNTs with silicon devices. From the observations stated above, we hope to demonstrate a processing technique in which we can grow and characterize nanotubes grown in a highly oriented manner. Finally, our main objective will be to integrate our fabrication techniques to form the basis for the growth of nanotubes of nanometer scale devices.