CVD Growth and Heat Transfer of Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes and graphene are extra-ordinal material with remarkable electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties. Films of vertically aligned (VA-) SWNTs and horizontally aligned (HA-) SWNTs are synthesized on quartz and crystal quartz substrates, respectively. These aligned film should inherit the remarkable properties of SWNTs. The recent progress in growth control and characterization techniques will be discussed. The CVD growth mechanism of VA-SWNTs is discussed based on the in-situ growth monitoring by laser absorption during CVD. For the precisely patterned growth of SWNTs, we recently propose a surface-energy-difference driven selective deposition of catalyst for localized growth of SWNTs. For a self assembled monolayer (SAM) patterned Si surface, catalyst particles deposit and SWNTs grow only on the hydrophilic regions. The proposed all-liquid-based approach possesses significant advantages in scalability and resolution over state-to-the-art techniques, which we believe can greatly advance the fabrication of nano-devices using high-quality as-grown SWNTs. The optical characterization of the VA-SWNT film using polarized absorption, polarized Raman, and photoluminescence spectroscopy will be discussed. The extremely high and peculiar thermal conductivity of single-walled carbon nanotubes has been explored by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation approaches. The thermal properties of the vertically aligned film and composite materials are studied by several experimental techniques and Monte Carlo simulations based on molecular dynamics inputs of thermal conductivity and thermal boundary resistance. Current understanding of thermal properties of the film is discussed.