Advanced Materials Division, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) Daejeon, 305-343, South Korea.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Yonsei University Seoul, 120-749, South Korea.
Sci Rep. 2014 Jun 13;4:5289. doi: 10.1038/srep05289.
Controlling the orientations of nanomaterials on arbitrary substrates is crucial for the development of practical applications based on such materials. The aligned epitaxial growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on specific crystallographic planes in single crystalline sapphire or quartz has been demonstrated; however, these substrates are unsuitable for large scale electronic device applications and tend to be quite expensive. Here, we report a scalable method based on graphoepitaxy for the aligned growth of SWNTs on conventional SiO₂/Si substrates. The "scratches" generated by polishing were found to feature altered atomic organizations that are similar to the atomic alignments found in vicinal crystalline substrates. The linear and circular scratch lines could promote the oriented growth of SWNTs through the chemical interactions between the C atoms in SWNT and the Si adatoms in the scratches. The method presented has the potential to be used to prepare complex geometrical patterns of SWNTs by 'drawing' circuits using SWNTs without the need for state-of-the-art equipment or complicated lithographic processes.
控制纳米材料在任意衬底上的取向对于基于这些材料的实际应用的发展至关重要。已经证明，单壁碳纳米管（SWNTs）可以在单晶蓝宝石或石英的特定晶面进行取向外延生长；然而，这些衬底不适合大规模电子器件应用，而且往往非常昂贵。在这里，我们报告了一种基于图形外延的可扩展方法，用于在传统的 SiO₂/Si 衬底上进行 SWNTs 的取向生长。抛光产生的“划痕”具有改变的原子组织，类似于晶向衬底中发现的原子排列。线性和圆形划痕线可以通过 SWNT 中的 C 原子与划痕中的 Si 原子之间的化学相互作用来促进 SWNT 的取向生长。所提出的方法有可能通过使用 SWNTs 绘制电路来制备复杂的 SWNTs 几何图案，而无需使用最先进的设备或复杂的光刻工艺。
