Kinetics of water-assisted single-walled carbon nanotube synthesis revealed by a time-evolution analysis

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jul 29;95(5):056104. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.056104. Epub 2005 Jul 29.

Abstract

Here we investigate the kinetics of water-assisted CVD (henceforth denoted as supergrowth CVD) by a quantitative time-evolution analysis based on a simple growth model. We found that the supergrowth can be well described by a model where the dynamics of the catalyst activity is treated similar to radioactive decay. An in-depth analysis based on this growth model revealed the kinetics of the supergrowth CVD, showing a scale relationship between the carbon source and water, and elucidated the role of water as a catalyst activity enhancer and preserver.