Carbon Nanotube Based Electrically Conductive and Optically Transparent Thin Films
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Carbon Nanotube Based Electrically Conductive and Optically Transparent Thin Films Zhongrui Li1, Enkeleda Dervishi2, Viney Saini2, Alexandru R. Biris3, Dan Lupu3, Yang Xu1, and Alexandru Sorin Biris1 1 Nanotechnology Center, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, 72204 2 Applied Science Department, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, 72204 3 National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Cluj Napoca, RO-3400, Romania ABSTRACT Electrically conductive and optically transparent thin films were fabricated on glass substrates with different types of purified carbon nanotubes including single-wall (SWNT), double-wall (DWNT), and multi-wall (MWNT) carbon nanotubes. The starting carbon nanotube materials were first made into homogenous solution with either sodium cholate or dimethylformamide. Two different fabrication approaches, airbrushing and membrane filtration methods, were used and compared. The chemical modification of thionyl chloride was employed to further improve the optical and electric performance of the SWNT films. Additionally, the temperature dependence of the resistance measured on the carbon nanotube networks has been investigated. 1. INTRODUCTION Current technologies for electrically conductive and optically transparent coatings utilize indium-tin oxide (ITO) thin films applied to an optically transparent substrate by physical vapor deposition processes, primarily sputtering. These processes require considerable cost and are difficult to scale up. Alternatively, utilizing carbon nanotubes as transparent conductor produces materials that closely match the properties of ITO in conductive transparent applications, and are more cost effectively produced, and are far more flexible and higher stable under UV radiation and chemical environments. The performance of conductive transparent carbon nanotube films is directly related to uniform and controlled application of high purity carbon nanotube material. Recently, there has been growing interest in using carbon nanotube thin films as flexible, transparent, and conducting coatings for applications in optoelectronics [ 1 , 2 ]. However, controlled deposition of large area highly conducting carbon nanotube films with high homogeneity required for nanoelectronics applications remains difficult to achieve. Direct deposition using spin coating, spraying, or incubation produces films with conductivity much lower than that of commercially used indium tin oxide (ITO) [3,4,5]. Deposition by vacuum filtration [6,7] is limited by filters and requires consistent transfer to flat substrates for further applications. In this work, we fabricated transparent conductive thin films on conventional glass substrates by using various species of purified carbon nanotubes: single-wall (SWNT), doublewall (DWNT), and multi-wall (MWNT) carbon nanotubes. Two different approaches, airbrushing and membrane filtration methods, were used in this study and the experimental results were compared. To furt
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