Coating of carbon nanotubes on flexible substrate and its adhesion study

✍ Scribed by Abdelaziz Rahy; Pooja Bajaj; Inga H. Musselman; Soon Hyung Hong; Ya-Ping Sun; Duck J. Yang

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 352 KB
• Volume: 255
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0169-4332
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2009.03.048

✦ Synopsis

The primary goal of this project was to develop a flexible transparent conductor with 100 V/sq and 90% transmittance in the wavelength range of 400-700 nm on a flexible substrate. The best result achieved so far was 110 V/sq at 88% transmittance using purified single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) coated on a polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate. The secondary goal was to simplify the overall coating procedure; we successfully reduced the process from five (prior art method) to three steps utilizing a sonication method. We also found that the use of metallic SWNTs significantly improved the conductivity and transmittance compared with the use of mixed SWNTs, i.e., unseparated SWNTs. Furthermore, a possible adhesion mechanism between SWNTs and the surface of PEN was studied; we concluded that a p-p stacking effect and a hydrophobic interaction are the major contributing factors for SWNTs to adhere to the surface of the substrate.