Deposition of palladium on suspended and locally grown carbon nanotubes using thermal evaporation

We present the potential of using a simple thermal evaporation process to deposit Palladium (Pd) nanoparticles on suspended and locally grown CNTs. Functionalization of CNTs with Pd is known to enhance the sensitivity and recovery towards detection of H₂ and CH₄. The functionalization processes reported previously in literature are generally dispersion and sonication. Such processes are destructive and not compatible to systems where CNTs are suspended and span two Si electrodes. Functionalization of CNTs using thermal evaporation represents an opportunity to fabrication of CNT-based sensors with a high scalability and CMOS/MEMS compatibility.