Investigation and evaluation of the morphology properties of carbon nanowalls based on fractal analysis and Minkowski functionals

Abstract

It is well-known that at the nano-scale, morphology can play a crucial role in the properties of nanomaterials and there is still a challenging task to control it during the synthesis. In this work, the morphology of carbon nanowalls (CNWs) is studied and evaluated on the basis of fractal analysis and Minkowski functionals. Synthesis of CNWs was carried out using ICP-PECVD method at different growth times. The obtained samples were examined using atomic force microscopy (AFM) with subsequent processing of the obtained data using the Gwyddion 2.55 program, which provides a fractal analysis including the height-height correlation function and the power spectral density function. The Minkowski functionals were plotted for evaluation of the morphology of the CNWs. The process of the formation of CNWs was considered depending on the synthesis duration. A possible time-dependent growth mechanism with certain stages of nanostructures formation is proposed. The correlation between the calculated parameters of morphology and the electrical properties of CNWs was revealed.