Carbon nanotubes grown by catalytic CVD on silicon based substrates for electronics applications

To exploit the impressive electronic, mechanical and thermal properties of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) in the nanoelectronics technology, the development of deposition methods enabling the synthesis of well ordered, properly located and reproducible CNTs structures, is strongly recommended. We have been developing catalytic CVD synthesis of CNTs in order to get aligned nanotubes for applications ranging from nuclear particle-position detectors and cold cathode emitters for storage devices, to interconnects, vias and CNT-FETs. In this paper, the significant achievements gained on CVD growth processes for the CNTs deposition are presented. Ni and Fe catalyst nanoparticles have been obtained starting from thin films evaporated on silicon based substrates. The growth of vertically aligned carpets of MWNTs and horizontally aligned SWNTs, having a diameter of about 1 nm and bridging between patterned catalyst islands, has been accomplished. The SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy and AFM characterizations are discussed.