Synthesis and growth mechanism of metal filled carbon nanostructures by CVD using Ni/Y catalyst supported on copper

Metal filled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been successfully synthesized by CVD using a novel Ni/Y catalyst supported on copper powder, which opens a new route for the fabrication of the CNTs reinforced copper matrix composites by directly synthesizing CNTs in copper. The growth processes of the CNTs are investigated in this paper. TEM analysis reveals that two kinds of carbon nanostructures, onion-like carbon nanospheres and a little amount of CNTs, coexist in the initial growth process. Along with the reaction time increased, onion-like carbon nanospheres coalesce and CNTs become more and longer. This is hard to be explained by previous reported mechanism mode. Therefore, a new growth mode—sphere-tube growth mechanism model is suggested for the CNTs growth based on our experiments.