Abstract
Rapid continuous thermal control of chemical reactions such as those for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of nanotubes and nanowires cannot be studied using traditional reactors such as tube furnaces, which have large thermal masses. We present the design, modeling, and verification of a simple, low-cost reactor based on resistive heating of a suspended silicon platform. This system achieves slew rates exceeding 100 °Cs, enabling studies of rapid heating and thermal cycling. Moreover, the reaction surface is available for optical monitoring. A first-generation CVD apparatus encapsulates the heated silicon platform inside a sealed quartz tube, and initial experiments demonstrate growth of films of tangled single-wall and aligned multiwall carbon nanotubes using this system. The reactor can be straightforwardly scaled to larger or smaller substrate sizes and may be extended for a wide variety of reactions, for performing in situ reaction diagnostics, for chip-scale growth of nanostructures, and for rapid thermal processing of microelectronic and micromechanical devices.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 083901 |
Journal | Review of Scientific Instruments |
Volume | 78 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2007 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was funded by NSF Grant No. DMI-0521985 and by an Ignition Grant from the MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. One of the authors (A.J.H.) is grateful for a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship. The authors thank M. P. Brenner of Harvard University for discussions regarding the thermal model.
Funding
This work was funded by NSF Grant No. DMI-0521985 and by an Ignition Grant from the MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. One of the authors (A.J.H.) is grateful for a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship. The authors thank M. P. Brenner of Harvard University for discussions regarding the thermal model.