Plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition growth and physical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes

Present work focuses on the growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) using nickel as a catalyst onto the silicon substrate through plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) method. As synthesised SWCNTs have been characterized by employing various analytical techniques like XRD, SEM, HR-TEM/EDS and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy. The HRTEM micrographs revealed that the SWCNTs were mostly entangled bundles with diameters of about 2 nm. The optical absorption data were used to estimate energy bandgap of the SWCNTs and found to be 2.67 eV. The photocatalytic performance of the nanotubes was examined by the deterioration of an organic dye methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation. The observed results exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity of the nanotubes that may be due to the large surface defects, surface area and small energy bandgap characteristics of the nanotubes.