Crossover between kite growth and vibrational bridging in pillar-assisted controlled formation of carbon nanotube networks

Abstract

Pillar-assisted growth is a technique in which short carbon nanotubes (CNTs) form suspended networks by growing across closely spaced microfabricated pillars. During growth, the CNT tips exhibit vibrations that allow them to bridge the neighboring pillars. To improve the complexity and controllability of the CNT networks, we introduce a kite-growth mechanism in which CNTs are elongated and aligned by gas flow during growth, enabling a longer bridging distance compared to vibrational bridging. By integrating theoretical modeling, simulations, and experimental synthesis, we found that CNT tip vibrations dominate bridging at short lengths, whereas gas flow increasingly influences alignment as CNTs grow longer. This results in a crossover behavior governed by gas flow and pillar arrangement. We also developed a bridging model based on geometric constraints to quantify the bridging behavior based on pillar spacing and angular accessibility. The statistical analysis of the resulting network structures demonstrates that the pillar arrangement significantly influences the connection types, with kite growth enabling more diverse network topologies. These findings provide design principles for tuning the density and structural complexity of suspended CNT networks, offering promising applications in nanoscale electrical interconnect wiring and three-dimensional circuit architectures.