Thin films of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have many unique properties such as high porosity and specific surface area, low density, high ratio of optical transmittance to sheet resistance, high thermal conductivity and chemical sensitivity, and tunable metallic and semiconducting properties. They are prepared from suspensions of SWCNTs by a liquid filtration, involving several time and resource consuming and potentially detrimental liquid dispersion and purification steps ending up with dense SWCNT networks on a filter, which have a transfer issue. Preparation of free-standing films by the vacuum-filtration method is a challenging task.
Esko I Kauppinen, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, and colleagues developed a simple, fast method to manufacture free-standing, multi-functional, SWCNT films with variable thicknesses ranging from submonolayer to a few micrometers. The SWCNTs were produced a gas phase synthesis process with very high purity and crystallinity. They can directly be deposited from the gas to a substrate and accordingly be directly utilised without additional purification steps.
The researchers fabricated state-of-the-art components from the same single component multifunctional SWCNT material for filtration of aerosol nanoparticles, transparent, flexible and highly conductive electrodes, extremely sensitive electrochemical sensors, polymer free saturable laser absorbers, gas heaters, thermo acoustic loudspeakers, and gas flow meters.
- Multifunctional Free-Standing Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Films,
Albert G. Nasibulin, Antti Kaskela†, Kimmo Mustonen, Anton S. Anisimov, Virginia Ruiz, Samuli Kivist§, Simas Rackauskas, Marina Y. Timmermans, Marko Pudas, Brad Aitchison, Marko Kauppinen, David P. Brown, Oleg G. Okhotnikov, Esko I. Kauppinen,
ASC Nano 2011.
DOI: 10.1021/nn200338r
