ABSTRACT
The enormous potential of plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for nanotube growth was first shown by Ren et al. in 1998. However, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) produced by plasma CVD have been typically limited to multiwalled carbon nanotube—that is, no one has succeeded in the growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) which have superior electrical and optical characteristics. The growth of SWNTs by plasma CVD was first reported by our group in 2003. In plasmas, ions are accelerated by a potential drop created by space potentials between the plasma and substrate. Because the chirality of SWNTs directly determines their electronic and optical properties, the selective synthesis of SWNTs with desired chiralities is one of the major challenges in nanotube science and applications. The length of SWNTs is another very important factor that determines their properties. Hence, both metallic and semiconducting SWNTs are easily deformed by the Ar plasma irradiation without any difference in the tube metallicity.
