Patterned growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes from elevated wafer structures
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
InventorsErhan Yenilmez, Hongjie Dai
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Abstract
A wafer-scale fabrication approach for manufacturing single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) tips is implemented. Catalyst material is selectively placed (e.g., patterned) onto a plurality of prefabricated elevated structures (e.g., silicon tips) on a wafer. SWNTs are grown protruding from the catalyst on the elevated structures. The resulting SWNT protruding from a tip can be implemented in a variety of applications, such as in atomic force microscopy (AFM). With this approach, nanotube tips can be implemented for a variety of applications, including advanced nanoscale imaging, imaging of solid-state and soft biological systems and for scanning probe lithography.
Claims24
A method for manufacturing a plurality of nanotube tips, the method comprising:
- forming a removable layer on a portion of a wafer having elevated structures extending therefrom, at least a portion of the elevated structures being substantially free of the removable layer;
- forming catalyst material on the removable layer and on the at least a portion of the elevated structures being substantially free of the removable layer;
- removing the removable layer and the catalyst material thereon, leaving catalyst material on a portion of the elevated structures;
- and
- growing single-walled carbon nanotube tips from the plurality of elevated structures using the catalyst material.
A method for manufacturing a plurality of probe tips, the method comprising:
- spin-coating a photoresist onto a wafer having a plurality of elevated structures and leaving at least a portion of the elevated structures exposed and substantially free from photoresist;
- forming catalyst suspension material on a portion of the photoresist and the exposed elevated structures;
- after forming the catalyst suspension material, removing the photoresist and a portion of the catalyst suspension material thereon with a solvent, leaving catalyst material on sidewalls of the plurality of elevated structures;
- placing the wafer into a CVD chamber;
- and
- heating the CVD chamber and growing single-walled carbon nanotube probe tips extending from the catalyst suspension material on the plurality of elevated structures.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.