CNT - MEMS
The integration of
suspended carbon nanotubes into micron-scale silicon-based devices offers many
exciting advantages in the realm of nano-scale sensing and micro- and nano-electromechanical
systems (MEMS and NEMS). To realize such devices, simple fabrication schemes
are needed. We have recently developed a new method to integrate carbon
nanotubes into silicon-based devices by applying conventional micro-fabrication
methods combined with a guided chemical vapor deposition growth of single-wall
carbon nanotubes. The described procedure yields clean, long, taut and
well-positioned tubes in electrical contact to conducting electrodes. The
positioning, alignment and tautness of the tubes are all controlled by the structural
and chemical features of the micro-fabricated substrate. As the approach
described consists of common micro-fabrication and chemical vapor deposition
growth procedures, it offers a viable route toward MEMS–NEMS integration and
commercial utilization of carbon nanotubes as nano-electromechanical
transducers.
Publications:
G. A. Karp et al., J.
Micromech. Microeng, 2009
A. Ya’akobovitz,
Submitted 2009
Previous related work
This project focuses
on an investigation concerning the tautness of suspended carbon nanotubes
(CNTs), grown using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and the utilization
of this phenomena in engineering CNT based devices. The suspended nanotubes are
analyzed with both a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and a high
resolution scanning electron microscope (HR-SEM). The HR-SEM and TEM
investigations revealed that the interactions between CNTs among themselves,
and with the surface on which they are grown, is a primary cause for the
tautness of suspended tubes. Specifically, the tube-tube and tube-surface
dynamics cause adjoining tubes to create a “zipper effect”, thereby
straightening and tightening them. Suspended CNTs cling to each other, and to
as much of the surface as possible, in order to minimize their total energy,
creating taut, suspended structures. This effect can be so strong so as to
force wide tubes to buckle, with no other external force involved. The
implications of this study include all forms of alignment processes of
nanotubes using the CVD method.
Novel transmission
electron microscope imaging of single-walled carbon nanotube systems
Z.
Nanotechnology, In
press 2006, Full text: pdf
Radial deformation
measurements of isolated pairs of single-walled carbon nanotubes
Z.
(Submitted 2006, Full
text: pdf)
Tube-Tube and
Tube-Surface Interactions in Straight Suspended Carbon Nanotube Structures
Ze’ev Abrams and
Journal of Physical
Chemistry B, In press, 2006, Full text: pdf