Mechanism of the initial stages of nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotube growth

We have studied the mechanism of the initial stages of nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotube growth illustrated for the case of a floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition system, which uses carbon monoxide (CO) and ammonia (NH3) as precursors and iron as a catalyst. We performed first-principles electronic-structure calculations, fully incorporating the effects of spin polarization and magnetic moments, to investigate the bonding and chemistry of CO, NH3, and their fragments on a model Fe-55 icosahedral cluster. A possible dissociation path for NH3 to atomic nitrogen and hydrogen was identified, with a reaction barrier consistent with an experimentally determined value we measured by tandem infrared and mass spectrometry. Both C-C and C-N bond formation reactions were found to be barrierless and exothermic, while a parasitic reaction of HCN formation had a barrier of over 1 eV.