Cobalt ultrathin film catalyzed ethanol chemical vapor deposition of single-walled carbon nanotubes

We report a simple and efficient chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process that can grow oriented and long single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) using a cobalt ultrathin film (similar to 1 nm) as the catalyst and ethanol as carbon feedstock. In the process, millimeter- to centimeter-long, oriented and high-quality SWNTs can grow horizontally on various flat substrate surfaces, traverse slits as large as hundreds of micrometers wide, or grow over vertical barriers as high as 20 mu m. Such observations demonstrate that the carbon nanotubes are suspended in the gas flow during the growth. The trace amount of self-contained water (0.2-5 wt %) in ethanol may act as a mild oxidizer to clean the nanotubes and to elongate the lifetime of the catalysts, but no yield improvement was observed at the CVD temperature of 850 degrees C. We found that tilting the substrates supporting the Co ultrathin film catalysts can grow more, longer carbon nanotubes. A mechanism is discussed for the growth of long SWNTs.