Combinatorial chips for optimizing the growth and integration of carbon nanofibre based devices

The growth of carbon nanofibres (CNF) by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) and the integration of CNFs into devices are studied using high throughput methodology. A growth compatibility chip containing candidate metal contact underlayers and transition metal catalyst layers are used to explore growth activity from various pairings of these two layers. In addition, catalyst density microarray chips (CDMCs) where each chip consists of catalyst patterns with various feature sizes and densities were used to investigate CNF growth and integration. The CDMCs were used to efficiently explore CNF growth conditions as well as subsequent downstream integration and testing for applications in ultrasensitive biosensing and field emission. The methodology described here is widely applicable as a general approach for optimizing the bottom-up growth and integration of nanostructures.