Ellipsometric Analysis of Aligned Carbon Nanotubes for Designing Catalytic Support Systems.

Vertically aligned CNT carpets combined with inorganic semiconductors are expected good prospect in practical applications, especially in photocatalysis. If these devices are in production, a fast and non-invasive characterization method will be required. Ellipsometry is widely used in industry as an in-line monitoring tool, so in this study the applicability of ellipsometry for characterizing CNT carpets is investigated. It is shown that ellipsometric evaluation can provide information about the density and the optical properties of the nanotubes; however, the properties of the individual nanotubes (diameter, wall number) can not be taken into account during ellipsometric modeling. To overcome these limitations, numerical simulations are also presented.