AVS 50th International Symposium
    Nanotubes Wednesday Sessions
       Session NT-WeP

Paper NT-WeP1
Reactor Design Considerations in the Hot Filament/DC Plasma Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes/Nanofibers

Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 11:00 am, Room Hall A-C

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: B.A. Cruden, Eloret Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center
Authors: B.A. Cruden, Eloret Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center
A.M. Cassell, Eloret Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center
Q. Ye, Eloret Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center
M. Meyyappan, NASA Ames Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
A combined hot filament/DC plasma approach to chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) has been explored. As a part of the study, the impact of filament usage and substrate holder design has been examined by SEM imaging of deposition products and monitoring of downstream products by residual gas analysis (RGA). It is demonstrated that the filament wire is important only in the pre-treatment of the substrate, where ammonia is dissociated and reacts with the substrate surface, improving CNF growth quality. However, the filament has no apparent impact when combined with the DC plasma, as demonstrated by RGA analysis of the plasma chemistry and the resultant films. The substrate holder is modified by introducing a graphite spacer into the electrode. By varying the size of the spacer, the effective surface.