Selective growth, characterization, and field emission performance of single-walled and few-walled carbon nanotubes by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

► Plasma enhanced CVD at relatively low synthesis temperature. ► Vertically aligned CNTs on semiconducting silicon wafer. ► CNT average length increases with plasma power and decreases with distance to plasma. ► Selective growth of few-walled and single-walled CNTs by tuning the catalyst thickness. ► Single-walled CNTs exhibit better field emission characteristics than the few-walled CNTs.