Structure Controlled Synthesis of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes Using Thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition Process

Due to their unique one-dimensional nanostructure along with excellent mechanical, electrical, and optical properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) become a promising material for diverse nanotechnology applications. However, large-scale and structure controlled synthesis of CNTs still have many difficulties due to the lack of understanding of the fundamental growth mechanism of CNTs, as well as the difficulty of controlling atomic-scale physical and chemical reactions during the nanotube growth process. Especially, controlling the number of graphene wall, diameter, and chirality of CNTs are the most important issues that need to be solved to harness the full potential of CNTs. Here we report the large-scale selective synthesis of vertically aligned single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and double walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs) by controlling the size of catalyst nanoparticles in the highly effective oxygen assisted thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. We also demonstrate a simple but powerful strategy for synthesizing ultrahigh density and diameter selected vertically aligned SWNTs through the precise control of carbon flow during a thermal CVD process.