Flame-synthesis of carbon nanotubes on silicon substrates and their field emission properties

We reported the flame-synthesis of patterned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on silicon substrate by a shadow mask and their field emission properties. It was found that CNTs with tangled and curved morphology were preferentially grown around the cracked edges of Ni dot pattern. A crack-induced catalyst-activation growth mechanism was proposed. The patterned CNTs fabricated by such a simple flame-synthesis method exhibited good field emission characteristics with uniform emission patterns and reproducible and stable emission behaviors, although the CNTs possessed many defective graphite layers and showed relatively higher turn-on and threshold field than other reported CNTs grown by chemical vapor deposition. Our results demonstrated that such a low-cost and scaleable CNT pattern fabrication process can be expected to have favorable applications in field emission devices.