Well-Aligned In-situ Formed Open-End Carbon Nanotube for Device and Assembly Applications
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0968-V06-05
Well-Aligned In-Situ Formed Open-End Carbon Nanotube for Device and Assembly Applications Lingbo Zhu and ChingPing Wong Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
ABSTRACT Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been proposed for applications in microelectronic applications, especially for electrical interconnects, thermal management, and nanodevices, due to their excellent electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. In this paper, we reported a simple process to achieve simultaneous CNT growth and opening of the CNT ends, while keeping alignment of the original CNT films/arrays. The addition of relatively low reactivity oxidizing agents (water) into the reaction furnace enables the feasibility. We proposed using novel CNT transfer technology, enabled by open-ended CNTs, to circumvent the high carbon nanotube (CNT) growth temperature and poor adhesion with the substrates that currently plague CNT implementation. The process is featured with separation of high-temperature CNT growth and low-temperature CNT device assembly. Field emission testing of the as-assembled CNT devices is in a good agreement with the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) equation, with a field enhancement factor of 4540. INTRODUCTION Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted great interest due to their extraordinary structural, electrical, and mechanical properties, and their wide range of potential applications [1]. The CNTs can be either metallic or semiconducting, depending upon how the graphite layer is wrapped into a cylinder [2, 3]. For applications of the nanotubes in microelectronics, the most interesting features are the ballistic transport of electrons and the extremely high thermal conductivity along the tube axis [4]. Metallic CNTs show ballistic conductivity at room temperature [5]. Based on these advantageous properties of CNTs, researchers have reported the integration of CNTs into electrical interconnect applications [6-8]. Recent studies have demonstrated that the internal walls of MWCNTs can participate in electrical transport, thereby enabling large current-carrying capacity [9]. Such achievements may then allow CNTs to serve as conductive nanowires and thus replace copper and aluminum films used in state-of-the-art circuits; such nanowires are less susceptible to electromigration under high current density than are Cu and Al. Our intent is to develop a novel process to open the nanotubes in-situ in order to study the corresponding CNT properties while maintaining CNT film alignment. In this paper, we report a novel process for in-situ opening CNTs by waterassisted selective etching. By taking advantage of such aligned open-ended CNT structure, we build CNT architecture using novel CNT transfer technology. The success of this methodology is reflected in the performance of the assembled CNT field emitters. This process may offer a new paradigm for transferring and integrating CNTs onto integrated circuits (ICs) as well as other moduli in microelectronic packaging systems, since the approaches used circumvent the high CNT growth
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