A study of temperature effect on unetched and etched Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofibers for bio/chemical sensors development

One of the major limitations in the development of ultrasensitive electrochemical biosensors based on one dimensional nanostructure is the difficulty involved with reliably fabricating, testing and characterizing nanoelectrode arrays (NEAs). In this work, to ensure nanoelectrode behavior and higher sensitivity, Vertically Aligned Carbon Nano Fibers (VACNFs) are precisely grown on 100 nm Ni dots with 1μm spacing on each micro pad. However, in order to grow nanofibers uniformly, a detailed study on etchant effect and temperature is required. In this paper, we study temperature effect on unetched and etched VACNFs and measure these nanoscale features with Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). With this method, both the 2-D and 3-D images of sample surface are generated and the effect of temperature on carbon nanofiber dimensions (diameter and height) is statistically analyzed.