Progression in the Growth of Cylindric Nanostructures: Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) and Carbon Nanofibers (CNFs) on Graphene.

The combination of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene produce a CNTs-graphene hybrid material with excellent electrical and mechanical properties that improved from their single form. This CNTs-graphene hybrid material has the potential to be used as electrodes and interconnects as it has better properties compared to copper (Cu). This work intended to grow CNTs on graphene using a CVD technique. The growth process used graphene on a Cu substrate with ferrocene as the catalyst, acetone as the carbon precursor and reactor temperature of 800oC. However, the process has unintentionally grown carbon nanofibers (CNFs). To observe the progression in the growth of CNTs and CNFs on graphene, the effect of growth reaction time is crucial. Hence, this work investigates the growth progression of the CNTs and CNFs on graphene based on different reaction times of 10 min, 20 min, 30 min and 60 min. It was found that the agglomeration of carbon is incomplete at 10 min reaction time and produced cylindric nanostructures. A further reaction time of 20 min and 30 min has significantly changed the size of the cylindric nanostructures into CNTs and CNFs with a very slight difference in the size, density, and coverage. The 30 min reaction time produced denser CNTs and CNFs with more uniform size and coverages. A longer reaction time of 60 min led to very long CNFs with an average length of 120 µm. In conclusion, meticulous fine-tuning of the reaction time is required to control the formation of CNTs and CNFs on graphene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]