CVD Synthesis of Small-Diameter Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes on Silicon

A simple process for chemical vapor deposition of ultra SD single wall carbon nanotubes has been developed. In this process, an iron nitrate nonahydrate solution in isopropyl alcohol with a concentration of 400 ug/mlit was used to catalyze nanoparticles formation on an oxidized silicon wafer. The oxide on the substrate was made of a thick layer of wet oxide sandwiched between tow thin layers of dry oxide. The process results in semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with diameter of less than 0.7nm and more than 1ev band gap energy, which are amongst the smallest diameters of SWNTs ever reported.