Direct growth of short single-walled carbon nanotubes with narrow-chirality distribution by time-programmed plasma chemical vapor deposition.

We have realized the direct growth of the short-length (<100 nm) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with a narrow-chirality distribution by time-programmed plasma chemical vapor deposition (TP-PCVD). Transmission electron microscope and atomic force microscope analyses reveal that the very short (<100 nm) SWNTs are selectively grown by precisely controlling their growth time on the order of a few seconds. Direct photoluminescence excitation measurements also show that the chirality distribution of the short SWNTs is fairly narrow, and (7, 6) and (8, 4) dominant short SWNTs are successfully synthesized by TP-PCVD.