Synthesis of Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) by PECVD using Ni catalyst printed by spark ablation

The precise control of patterned arrays of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) is an issue of interest in a wide range of applications. In the present work, we report the synthesis of CNFs grown by plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) from a Ni catalyst patterned via aerosol printing of nanoparticles (NPs) by a spark ablation technique. The printing speeds were adjusted to vary the catalyst density and characterize the CNFs distribution in the pre-patterned lines. Depending on the printing speed, different CNFs distributions are obtained, ranging from dense vertically-aligned CNFs (VACNFs) to sparse individual CNFs.