Two-Dimensional Carbon Nanotube Networks: A Transparent Electronic Material
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0905-DD06-05.1
Two-Dimensional Carbon Nanotube Networks: A Transparent Electronic Material George Gruner Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California Los Angeles Box 951547 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547 ABSTRACT The random, two-dimensional network formed of electrically conducting nanoscale wires, called carbon nanotubes, is a transparent electronic material that can be fabricated using room-temperature printing or spraying technologies. Depending on the network density, networks with both metallic- and semiconducting-like attributes can be fabricated. Both display high conductivity, high carrier mobility and optical transparency. The networks also have high mechanical flexibility, robustness and environmental resistance. Application opportunities range from lightweight, transparent conducting films, to electrically conducting fabrics, to active electronic devices and sensors. INTRODUCTION Transparent and conducting materials have found applications in a variety of areas, ranging from energy to electronics. The current choice of materials are transparent conducting oxides, with indium-tin-oxide, ITO as the prime example1,2. In recent years we have seen the emergence of novel materials ranging from conducting plastics to composites. The value proposition in all cases lies not necessarily in increased performance, but in cheap fabrication and additional attributes such as mechanical flexibility. This paper discusses the properties of another “material”, a two-dimensional network of carbon nanotubes (NTs), nano-scale wires with exceptional mechanical and electrical properties. These properties have been demonstrated3,4 through extensive experiments performed on single NTs (throughout this paper, single wall carbon NTs SWNTs are discussed). Manufacturability and system integration is required for the exploitation of the attributes, an objective difficult to achieve if, for example, devices incorporating single tubes are the objective. For this reason, an alternative avenue that exploits large-scale statistical averaging of the properties of individual tubes appears to be more promising for a variety of applications. A random network of such NTs is an obvious – and perhaps the most straightforward – realization of this concept. Such a network is also referred to as a “thin film”, although this nomenclature may be misleading when applied to networks with significantly less that full coverage of a substrate. There is growing interest in single wall carbon NT thin films for applications in the area of macroelectronics and in the general area of optoelectronics where flexible, transparent and conducting coatings together with room-temperature fabrication are required.
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This paper discusses some of the fabrication issues properties of nanotube networks and the various proof-of-concept realizations of the usefulness of the material in a variety of applications. THE MATERIAL: A TWO DIMENSIONAL RANDOM CARBON NANOTUBE NETWORK What we call a “material’ is a two-dimensional network of nanoscale wires
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