Low-temperature grown vertically aligned carbon nanotube array for an optimal infrared bolometer

Vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) arrays have been explored as an absorber of thermal-type photodetectors. A long and dense VACNT array absorbs a wide spectral range of incident light with high absorption rate, but has a high thermal mass that results in a low response speed. To achieve a small thermal mass, a shorter and less dense VACNT array is needed. In addition, the high temperature needed to grow the VACNTs is detrimental to the functional sensing materials of the photodetector. The height, density, and growth temperature of VACNTs need to be optimized to achieve a working absorber that has high absorption rate and a high response speed. In this work, a low-temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition process is used to prepare various VACNT arrays with different heights and densities by controlling the CNT growth parameters. The absorption coefficients of the resulting samples are measured with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. An effective medium theory (EMT) is adopted to establish a working model of the VACNTs. Using experimentally extracted CNT density and height as fitting parameters, the EMT model is fitted to obtain theoretical absorption coefficients, which are found to be comparable to the experimentally measured absorption coefficients. Our experimental and theoretical investigations pave the way for future studies to integrate CNTs with infrared photodetectors.