Temperature-dependent selective growth of carbon nanotubes in Si/SiO2 structures for field emitter array applications

Abstract

Temperature-dependent selective growth of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) in Si/SiO2 structures using ferrocene/xylene volatile catalyst source and its application in Field Emitter Array (FEA) is demonstrated in this work. CNTs are grown directly on Si/SiO2 substrates by volatile catalyst source (Ferrocene/Xylene) Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique and the effect of growth temperatures (760–880 °C) on CNT height and crystallinity has been studied. Selective growth of CNTs on Si substrates is achieved at 790 °C growth temperature. Using the obtained selective growth condition, CNT FEAs are fabricated by growing CNT bundles selectively on the Si surface of the pre-fabricated SiO2 pits on a Si wafer. Field emission current density above 100 mA/cm² is obtained from inter-pit separation distances of 4–10 μm. These results show the potential of ferrocene/xylene catalyst source in achieving selective growth of CNTs in Si/SiO2 structures for FEA application.