Catalyst Dynamics during Carbon Nanotube and Si Nanowire CVD

Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ85287-1704, USA Self-assembled nanowires and nanotubes offer the prospect of accurate and scalable device engineering at an atomistic scale. However, deterministic nanotube growth and the control of nanowire dopant profiles and heterostructures are limited by an incomplete understanding of the role of commonly used catalysts and specifically their interface dynamics. We present atomic-scale environmental transmission electron microscopy (ETEM) and in-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of catalyst assisted growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) [1], carbon nanofibres (CNFs) [1] and silicon nanowires (SiNWs) [2], combined with a large-throughput ex-situ catalyst screening by plasma assisted and thermal CVD [3,4,5]. We sample Ni, Fe, Au and Pd model catalyst films on SiO