Catalyst consumption during growth of carbon nanofilaments on Pd seeds

Abstract

Carbon nanofilaments are produced at 600°C by catalytic decomposition of acetylene on palladium nanoparticles. We observe that nanofilament length is limited to a few hundreds of nm when the size of Pd germs is less than 10nm, possibly due to the incorporation of Pd atoms during growth. We propose a growth model, supported by first-principles calculations which show that Pd atoms are stable when adsorbed on graphene and that a charge transfer occurs, modifying significantly the electronic properties.