Charge transport measurements of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers

Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (VACNFs) have found a variety of electronic applications. To further realize these applications, a good understanding of the charge transport properties is essential. In this work, charge transport properties have been systematically measured for three types of VACNF forests with Ni as catalyst, namely VACNFs grown by direct current PECVD, and inductively coupled PECVD at both normal pressure and low pressure.; The structure and composition of these nanofibers have also been investigated in detail prior to the charge transport measurements. Four-probe I-V measurements on individual nanofibers have been enabled by the fabrication of multiple metal ohmic contacts on individual fibers that exhibited resistance of only a few kO. An O2 plasma reactive ion etch method has been used to achieve ohmic contacts between the nanofibers and Ti/Au, Ag/Au, Cd/Au, and Cr/Au electrodes.; Direct current VACNFs exhibit linear I-V behavior at room temperature, with a resistivity of approximately 4.2 x 10-3 O·cm. Our measurements are consistent with a dominant transport mechanism of electrons traveling through intergraphitic planes in the dc VACNFs. The resistivity of these fibers is almost independent of temperature, and the contact resistance decreases as temperature increases. Further studies reveal that the 10--15 nm thick graphitic outer layer dominates the charge transport properties of do VACNFs. This is demonstrated by comparison of charge transport properties of as-grown VACNFs and VACNFs with the outer layer partially removed by oxygen plasma reactive ion etch. The linear I-V behavior of the fibers does not vary as this outer layer becomes thinner, but displays a drastic shift to a rectifying behavior when this layer is completely stripped away from some regions of the nanofiber. This shift may be related with the compositional differences in the outer layer and the inner core of the nanofibers.; Two-probe charge transport measurements on inductively coupled PECVD grown VACNFs indicate linear I-V behavior, and the resistivity of both types of inductively coupled PECVD grown VACNFs is on the order of 10-3 to 10-4 O·cm.