Synthesis Peculiarities of CNT “Forest” Under Conditions of Adding a Regulated Plasma Component of the Working Gas

Abstract

It has been shown that in case of adding a regulated plasma component of gas to the working gas mixture, the synthesis by the PECVD method of carbon nanotubes (CNT) on catalytic centers formed from a thin film deposited by vacuum-arc sputtering of a catalyst leads to the formation of nanotubes of two morphological types: forest and multiwall CNTs with surface substructure. Carbon nanotubes have their growth centers located either on solid crust formed on the substrate surface owing to the plasma component or directly on the substrate surface, when sufficiently small (5–20 nm) catalytic high-density centers are formed on this substrate. Plasma component forms a well-developed surface on multiwall nanotubes that is important for their practical application.