Selective growth of carbon nanotubes on silicon protrusions

Abstract

A novel and simple process for fabrication of a carbon nanotube field emitter array is reported. Chemical vapor deposition (plasma enhanced CVD and thermal CVD) and lift-off process were used for selective growth of CNTs on the vertexes of the protrusions. The field emission measurements of the CNTs arrays were performed by taking current-voltage curves in an ultrahigh vacuum condition. It was found that the CNTs array grown by the TCVD with the Ti buffer layer gave the best FE characteristics.