Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 48, 20603 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2009162

Effects of magnetic and electric fields on the growth of carbon nanotubes using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique

Nanophysics laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Tehran, Iran

Corresponding author: arzi@khayam.ut.ac.ir

Received: 24 November 2008
Revised: 20 April 2009
Accepted: 30 July 2009
Published online: 2 October 2009

Abstract

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes are grown on nickel-seeded silicon substrates using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method at a temperature of 650 °C utilizing a mixture of acetylene and hydrogen. Magnetic and electric fields were used to obtain well-oriented carbon nanotubes. The direction of growth was found to strongly depend on the directions and magnitudes of the applied fields. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been used to investigate the grown nanotubes. The SEM and TEM images of as grown nanotubes show that applying magnetic field during the growth process affects the growth direction of the nanotubes and, furthermore, bent nanotubes can be achieved by changing the direction of the applied electric field alone. Raman spectroscopy has been used to analyze the structure of the samples.