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Pulsed laser dewetting of nickel catalyst for carbon nanofiber growth

Y F Guan1, R C Pearce1, A V Melechko2, D K Hensley2, M L Simpson1,2 and P D Rack1,3

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We present a pulsed laser dewetting technique that produces single nickel catalyst particles from lithographically patterned disks for subsequent carbon nanofiber growth through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Unlike the case for standard heat treated Ni catalyst disks, for which multiple nickel particles and consequently multiple carbon nanofibers (CNFs) are observed, single vertically aligned CNFs could be obtained from the laser dewetted catalyst. Different laser dewetting parameters were tested in this study, such as the laser energy density and the laser processing time measured by the total number of laser pulses. Various nickel disk radii and thicknesses were attempted and the resultant number of carbon nanofibers was found to be a function of the initial disk dimension and the number of laser pulses.


PACS

81.16.Hc Catalytic methods

42.62.-b Laser applications

81.15.Gh Chemical vapor deposition (including plasma-enhanced CVD, MOCVD, etc.)

Subjects

Surfaces, interfaces and thin films

Optics, quantum optics and lasers

Nanoscale science and low-D systems

Dates

Issue 23 (11 June 2008)

Received 25 February 2008, in final form 19 March 2008

Published 7 May 2008



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