Controlled nanomaterial manufacturing
AssigneeCVD Equipment Corporation
InventorsKarlheinz Strobl, Emmanuel Lakios
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An internal gas heating system apparatus enables operation of a large diameter horizontal chemical vapor processing tube reactor in the manufacture of nanomaterials, such as silicon nanowires (SiNWs) or vertically aligned carbon nanotubes on at least one catalytically active substrate. Where the nanomaterials are SiNWs, they may have controlled length, dopant level incorporation, and lower and narrower diameter distribution that on average is not greater than 50% of the average catalytic Au nanoparticle size deposited on the catalytically active substrate(s) before the SiNW growth phase.
Claims20
A chemical vapor processing reactor comprising:
- a horizontal reaction tube enclosed within an external heater;
- a preheater positioned within the reaction tube, the preheater including a plurality of baffles that collectively define a tortuous gas transmission path through the preheater;
- a round-to-rectangular flow converter configured to convert gas flowing from the preheater into a rectangular flow;
- one or more substrates suitable for nanomaterial growth positioned within the flow converter;
- and
- an exhaust gas collector to remove gas exiting from the flow converter.
A chemical vapor processing reactor comprising:
- a horizontal reaction tube enclosed within an external heater;
- a round-to-rectangular flow converter configured to convert gas flowing from the preheater into a rectangular flow through a vertically oriented opening;
- one or more vertically oriented substrates suitable for nanomaterial growth positioned within the flow converter;
- and
- an exhaust gas collector to remove gas exiting from the flow converter.
Harvestable silicon nanowires (SiNWs) grown on a catalytically active growth substrate with a diameter greater than four inches, the catalytically active substrate comprising catalytic nanoparticles having a diameter, the SiNWs having an average diameter less than 1.5 times the diameter of the catalytic nanoparticles, a length greater than 5 μm, a diameter distribution not greater than 50% of the diameter of the catalytic nanoparticles, and an average resistance of from 0.01 to 100 MΩ.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.