Growth and field emission of carbon nanofibers on electroless Ni-P alloy catalyst

Abstract

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were grown on a Ni-P alloy catalyst deposited on a silicon substrate in a microwave heating chemical vapor deposition system with methane gas at 650 degreesC. The Ni-P alloy catalyst films with various thicknesses were produced using an electroless plating nickel technique. The nanosized clusters on the clustered surface of the Ni-P alloy catalyst film directly provided the nucleation sites for CNFs without any pretreatment before the growth of the CNFs. The CNFs grown on the Ni-P alloy catalyst showed random orientation and it composed of parallel graphite planes with defects tilted from their axis. Field emission measurement indicated that the Ni-P catalyzed-CNFs exhibited excellent field emission properties. The diameter, growth rate and field emission properties show a strong correlation with the thickness of the Ni-P alloy catalyst film. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.