Observation of Charge Generation and Transfer during CVD Growth of Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotube (CNT) is believed to be the most promising material for next generation IC industries with the prerequisite of chirality specific growth. For various approaches to controlling the chiral indices of CNTs, the key is to deepen the understanding of the catalytic growth mechanism in chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Here we show our discovery that the as-grown CNTs are all negatively charged after Fe-catalyzed CVD process. The extra electrons come from the charge generation and transfer during the growth of CNTs, which indicates that an electrochemical process happens in the surface reaction step. We then designed an in situ measurement equipment, verifying that the CVD growth of CNTs can be regarded as a primary battery system. Furthermore, we found that the variation of the Fermi level in Fe catalysts have a significant impact on the chirality of CNTs when different external electric fields are applied. These findings not only provide a new perspective on the growth of CNTs but also open up new possibilities for controlling the growth of CNTs by electrochemical methods.