In Situ Measurement of Carbon Nanotube Growth Kinetics in a Rapid Thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor with Multizone Infrared Heating

Abstract

Understanding and controlling the growth of vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) forests by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is essential for unlocking their potential as candidate materials for next generation energy and mass transport devices. These advances in CNT manufacturing require developing in situ characterization techniques capable of interrogating how CNTs grow, interact, and self-assemble. Here we present a technique for real-time monitoring of VACNT forest height kinetics applied to a unique custom designed rapid thermal processing (RTP) reactor for CVD of VACNTs. While the integration of multiple infrared heating lamps enables creating designed spatiotemporal temperature profiles inside the reactor, they pose challenges for in situ measurements. Hence, our approach relies on contrast-adjusted videography and image processing, combined with calibration using 3D optical microscopy with large depth-of-field. Our work enables reliably measuring VACNT growth rates and catalytic lifetimes, which are not possible to measure using ex situ methods.