Low temperature growth of carbon nanotubes using Ni nanopowder mixed with Ag-paste as catalyst

Growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at low temperature is a critical issue in the development of CNTs for diversified applications. The screen printing method, which used silver paste mixed with CNTs and glass powder as the raw material, was usually adopted for fabricating cathode of field emission device. In this work, Ni nanopowder mixed with commercial Ag-paste was prepared and screen-printed on the glass substrate, and then subjected to sintering in air at 500 °C. Growth of CNTs was performed in a self-designed cold-walled chemical vapour deposition (CVD) chamber at 500 °C under a pressure between 1 and 10 Torr. Field emission property was tested and the turn-on field of 2.4 V/μm was obtained for the specimen containing 2.7 wt.% Ni nanopowder. CNT density can be controlled by adjusting the concentration of Ni nanopowder in silver paste. This method proposed a simple route for synthesizing CNTs at relatively low temperature in a conventional CVD system, which is capable of fabricating large area cathode with proper CNT density.