Confined growth of carbon nanotubes and silicon nanowires in lateral porous alumina templates

Gowtham Manoharan

This thesis is addressing the problem of organization of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) and Silicon Nanowires (SiNWs). We propose a novel method based on lateral Porous anodic alumina (PAA) templates to solve this problem. The fabrication steps and different ways to control the pore structure of these lateral PAA templates are studied. We also show the effect of the confinement by patterning aluminium lines, both at micro and nanoscale. This confinement effect leads to organization of 1-D arrays of nanopores. Different catalysts have been explored for both CNTs and SiNWs. The problem of electrodeposition has been addressed and we have proposed a novel solution to fill the templates efficiently. The growth mechanism inside the PAA templates has been discussed and finally we have demonstrated the CVD grown CNTs and SiNWs in these lateral PAA templates. We claim that with this method, it is possible to place individual tubes or wires with a high density in wafer scale.

Mots clés: Anodic alumina; Carbon nanotubes; Silicon nanowires; Cvd; Electrodeposition

Domaines: Chimie; Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Physique [physics]

Gowtham Manoharan. Confined growth of carbon nanotubes and silicon nanowires in lateral porous alumina templates. Chemical Sciences. Ecole Polytechnique X, 2009. English. ⟨NNT : ⟩. ⟨pastel-00005283⟩