Confocal Microscopy for Process Monitoring and Wide-Area Height Determination of Vertically-Aligned Carbon Nanotube Forests

Coatings

Markus Piwko¹  Holger Althues¹  Benjamin Schumm¹  Stefan Kaskel¹ 

[1] Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology (IWS), Winterbergstraße 28, 01277 Dresden, Germany; E-Mails:

关键词: vertically aligned carbon nanotubes;    forest height characterization;    confocal microscopy;    optical imaging;    chemical vapor deposition;   

DOI  :  10.3390/coatings5030477

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Confocal microscopy is introduced as a new and generally applicable method for the characterization of the vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNT) forest height. With this technique process control is significantly intensified. The topography of the substrate and VACNT can be mapped with a height resolution down to 15 nm. The advantages of confocal microscopy, compared to scanning electron microscopy (SEM), are demonstrated by investigating the growth kinetics of VACNT using Al₂O₃ buffer layers with varying thicknesses. A process optimization using confocal microscopy for fast VACNT forest height evaluation is presented.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.