Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Templated Metal Microstructures

Our group has used vertically aligned carbon nanotubes as a patterned, three-dimensional microfabrication scaffold to create CNT composite materials through chemical vapor infiltration. This method, termed carbon nanotube templated microfabrication (CNT-M), is a novel approach for creating precise high-aspect-ratio microstructures. In the past, dielectrics (SiO$_{2}$ and SiN$_{x})$ and semiconductors (Si and a-C) were the materials deposited on the CNT framework. Production and characterization of metallic microstructures is in its infancy. This study presents electrical, mechanical and structural properties of \textit{metallic} microstructures made using tungsten and molybdenum carbonyl precursors through the CNT-M process.