Development of Carbon Nanotube based radiation detectors

Multi Wall Carbon NanoTubes (MWCNT) are one-dimensional structures with diameters ranging between 5 and 30 nm and lengths up to hundreds of micrometers. They show a metallic-like behaviour and enhanced field emission capability; their sensitivity to the radiation is very peculiar, depending on their diameter and chirality. The wide range of their bandgaps (from 0.4 to o 6 eV) makes these devices very suitable for fabrication of sensors of electromagnetic radiation, from UV to IR. This opens the possibility to build wide sensitive range radiation detectors for space researches and environmental controls. Preliminary tests have been performed by exposing a prototype detector made up of a MWCNT carpet grown by the CVD technique between two gold electrodes on a 500 micrometer thick silicon substrate to pulsed UV, visible and IR radiation. First results on the charge generated by pulsed laser and continuous lamp illumination are reported.