title: Liquid-crystalline processing of highly oriented carbon nanotube arrays for thin-film transistors.
abstract: We introduce a simple solution-based method for the fabrication of highly oriented carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays to be used for thin-film transistors. We exploit the liquid-crystalline behavior of a CNT solution near the receding contact line during tilted-drop casting and produced long-range nematic-like ordering of carbon nanotube stripes caused by confined micropatterned geometry. We further demonstrate that the performance of thin-film transistors based on these densely packed and uniformly oriented CNT arrays is largely improved compared to random CNTs. This approach has great potential in low-cost, large-scale processing of high-performance electronic devices based on high-density oriented CNT films with record electrical characteristics such as high conductance, low resistivity, and high career mobility.
authors.affiliation: Materials Science & Engineering Department, Iowa State University, Ames, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Hyunhyub
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Vladimir V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Tsukruk
mesh_terms: D017097:Electric Impedance; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D008839:Microelectrodes; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D014173:Transistors, Electronic
chemical_list: D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D006046:Gold