National University of Science and Technology “MISiS”, Moscow, Russia:

L. V. Kozhitov, Professor
E. V. Yakushko, Post-Graduate Student

A. V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis (Russian Academy of Sciences), Moscow, Russia:
D. G. Muratov, Senior Researcher

¹National University of Science and Technology “MISiS”, Moscow, Russia, ²JSC “SPONK”, Moscow, Russia:
B. G. Kiselev, Chief Executive Officer², Assistant Professor of Applied Economics Chair¹, phone: +7 (495) 950-48-55

This article describes the process of growth of carbon nanotubes by plasma chemical vapor deposition. There was investigated the influence of method and type of obtaining of metallic growth catalysts on carbon nanotubes' morphology. For the first time, CoNi/C and Ni/C nanocomposites, obtained by IR-pyrolysis of polyacrylonitrile and suitable metals' compounds, were used as growth catalysts. The carried out researches defined that vacuum thermal spraying and method of precipitation from arc-discharge plasma are the most prospective methods for applying of carbon nanotubes' growth catalysts on silicon substrates. Carbon nanotubes' growth catalysts, obtained by the foregoing methods, allow to grow the films, as an array of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes with diameter of ~10–30 nm, forming the bundles with diameter of ~50 nm. Thicker hollow bundles with diameter of 4.1 μm can be also formed, which is defined by the size of metal areas, formed by coagulation of thin metal layer (10–30 nm) on the substrate by the substrate heating during the growth of carbon nanotubes. Metal layer thickness defines the course of the growth process, because of impossibility of formation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes at the layer thickness of 150 nm. For the first time, metalcarbon nanocomposites, based on polyacrylonitrile and Ni and Co chlorides, were used for the growth of carbon nanotubes. Thin nanocomposite films can be used as carbon nanotubes' growth catalysts. The carbon nanotubes, obtained, using this catalyst, lay on the substrate surface nonuniformly, which is defined by considerable distance between nanocomposite surface growth centers, which is a result of heating and plasma treatment in carbon nanotubes' growth process, and irregularity of carbon matrix of nanocomposite. Diameter of carbon nanotubes, obtained on such catalyst is 10–80 nm, and their length is ~1 μm.

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