A vapor-liquid-solid model for chemical vapor deposition growth of carbon nanotubes.

Although carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with a variety of morphologies have been successfully synthesized, there is no clear physical picture of the growth process. Correspondingly, the growth mechanism is still not clear up to now. Here we suggest a VLS model for the growth process of CNTs, which involves a liquid or liquid-like state catalyst. The basic idea is that, due to the high thermal conductivity and nanometer size of the catalyst and the fast diffusion of carbon atoms in it, both the temperature and the carbon atom distribution across it are uniform. The supersaturation level can be expressed as a function of the carbon concentration and temperature, which determines the nucleation dynamics and growth kinetics. Based on this model, the growth rate equation was obtained to describe the growth kinetics of carbon nanotubes, which shows good accordance with the experimental results.