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Plasma is a useful tool to synthesize carbon nanomaterials, including diamonds, fullerenes, nanotubes, and graphenes. This review gives an overview of these carbon nanomaterials produced by thermal or nonthermal plasmas and of the authors' work related to plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of carbon nanotubes, along with an analysis and numerical simulation of CH4/H2 feedstock gas plasmas. The amount of carbon atoms in the grown carbon nanotubes and that calculated by simulation showed good agreement. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 96(6): 1–8, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.11504

Electromagnetically pulled-out gas plasma (EPOP) gun was developed, which will be applied to the filtered arc deposition system in order to enhance the nitriding of preparing thin film under medium vacuum. A hot cathode of tungsten (W) filament was employed and DC discharge was generated between the cathode and anode (SUS304). The distance of electrodes was 100 mm. Electromagnetic coils were placed around the cathode, anode and plasma pulled-out duct, separately. Experimental pressure was 0.1 Pa. The following results were obtained. Ignition voltage became lower when the same direction magnetic field was axially applied to the cathode and anode. Minimum voltage for sustaining the discharge became lower when the magnetic filed was applied to the anode. With increasing discharge voltage, the discharge current increased dramatically for the discharge voltage less than 50 V and increased gradually for the voltage more than that. The plasma between the cathode and anode was able to be pulled out to the process chamber by applying magnetic field perpendicular to the discharge axis. The amount of pulled-out plasma increased with increasing the filament current and magnetic flux density for plasma pulling-out.