Articles
  • Carbon nanofiber bundles grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition
  • Norihiro Shimoia and Shun-ichiro Tanakab,*
  • a Graduate Student, Department of Metallurgy, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, A oba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan b Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Ja pa
Abstract
A bundle of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) was successfully obtained on a glass substrate through a plasma enhanced chemical v a p o r d e p o s i t i o n ( P E C V D ) p r o c e s s . C N F s h a v i n g d i m e n s i o n s o f 1 0 0 n m i n d i a m e t e r a n d 1 μ m in length nucleated on the NiCr catalysis and grew selectively in a circular area 3 μ m in diameter with a number density of 50 in 1 μ m 2 . PECVD was used with mixed source gases of CH 4 /H 2 / H e a n d a s u b s t r a t e t e m p e r a t u r e o f l e s s t h a n 7 4 3 K w h i c h w a s l o w e r t h a n t h e t r a n s i t i o n temperature of glass substrate. Each CNF had a nanostructure of a stacked cup-cone shaped graphite shells with a Ni-Cr nanoparticle surmounted at the top. The field emission characteristics of the CNF bundle were also evaluated up to 3 μ A at 1 3 0 V a n d t h e m a x i m u m i n t h e c u r r e n t - v o l t a g e r e l a t i o n w a s c o n v e r t e d t o a F o w l e r - N o r d h e i m ( F - N ) p l o t u s i n g a w o r k f u n c t i o n v a l u e o f 5 . 0 e V f o r C N F w h i c h s h o w e d a n e x p l i c i t l i n e a r F - N r e l a t i o n . T h i s m e a n s a C N F b u n d l e i s a c a n d i d a t e e l e m e n t f o r two dimensional field emitter devices.

Keywords: Carbon nanofiber, CNF bundle, PECVD, Field emitter, F-N plot.

This Article

  • 2008; 9(5): 437-439

    Published on Oct 31, 2008