Formation Process of Nickel Nano-clusters for Catalytic Growth of Carbon Nanotubes for Use in Field-Effect Transistors

摘要

Incorporation of carbon nanotubes in conventional silicon technology to exploit their outstanding electrical properties offers opportunities in nanoelectronics. We report on a fabrication technique which utilizes catalytic nickel nano-clusters and chemical vapor deposition to obtain in situ grown carbon nanotubes for field-effect devices. The crucial catalyst formation process is found to be open to influence by an oxygen plasma treatment and the annealing temperature. Here, atomic force microscopy images show the most promising results on plasma treated samples that are annealed at 920°C. Electrical measurements on fabricated devices indicate that by now devices are either well switching (on/off current ratio of 4.5 orders of magnitude) or well current carrying (80 μA).