Exploring CVD techniques for the growth of novel carbon nanostructures

摘要

The design and production of nanocrystalline carbons is presently a focus of the scientific community. The fascinating properties of the "last generation" carbon nanomaterials are offering indeed enormous potential applications in many technological areas. To address the issue of producing nano-scale graphites or nanodiamonds, various metodologies, mainly based on carbon sublimation or carbon vapour condensation in hightemperature transient regimes are currently employed. The demand of an increasing control on synthesis processes (in terms of reproducibility, selectivity, homogeneity) constitutes in this context a challenging task [1]. Tailored C nanostructures are nowadays generated mainly using CVD-based apparatuses, where kinetically driven processes promote the creation of novel materials, allowing at the same time to modulate their size, shape, and structure. The CVD is, in principle, the only synthesis technique by which the two main goals of producing in a controlled way a series of "novel" carbonbased materials and of integrating directly carbon nanostructures into devices can be satisfactorily achieved.