Conformal metal oxide coatings on nanotubes by direct low temperature metal-organic pyrolysis in supercritical carbon dioxide

The authors demonstrate that low temperature (<200 °C) thermal decomposition of metal-organic precursors dissolved in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is an effective method to penetrate into dense three-dimensional networks and deposit conformal metal oxide films with tunable thickness. The results specifically show that thermal decomposition of gallium acetylacetonate in scCO2, leads to conformal coatings of gallium oxide on multiwalled carbon nanotube forests with a fast deposition rate (∼3-4 nm/min), without the need for any cosolvent. Moreover, as-formed metal oxide/nanotube structures can be further conformally coated by metal atomic layer deposition to produce nanotube/oxide/metal nanocomposites.