Growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes by alcohol chemical vapor deposition with water vapor addition: Narrowing the diameter and chiral angle distributions

Abstract

We report the structure-controlled growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) based on alcohol chemical vapor deposition with the addition of water vapor. The introduction of water vapor during the growth and pretreatment by water vapor was both systematically examined for the growth of SWCNTs. Raman spectroscopy analysis revealed that the addition of water vapor in both cases induced a decrease in the tube diameters, which indicates the importance of catalyst conditioning for the changes in chirality distribution. The selective growth of SWCNTs having small diameters and large chiral angles was achieved by water vapor pretreatment.