Flexible transparent conducting single-wall carbon nanotube film with network bridging method.
We fabricated random network films of highly pure single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrate by dip- and spray-coatings and their combination method for application to flexible transparent conducting films (TCFs). The dip-coating treatment was a more efficient method for fabricating the SWCNT-TCFs of high electrical conductivity without drastic drop in the optical transmittance, compared to the spray-coating one. This should be primarily due to more loose contact in intertube and interbundle junctions of the spray-coated SWCNT networks. Although the electrical conductivity of the SWCNT-TCFs was dramatically enhanced as increasing the number of dipping times, the dip-coating treatment with a large number of dipping times considerably reduced the transmittance without corresponding improvement in the electrical conductivity, indicating the patch-wise coating of the SWCNTs. On the other hand, the combination of the spray- and dip-coatings gave a supplementary effect for formation of a highly transparent film of better electrical conductivity. For SWCNT-TCF coated with 100 dipping times, an additional spray-coating dramatically decreased the sheet resistance from 1300 to 340 Omega/square, which is accompanied by slight reduction of the transmittance from 88 to 80%. Therefore, the post spray-coating can efficiently bridge the patch-wise SWCNT networks produced by the successive dip-coating.
Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoi, Inage, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
Young Il
YI
Song
Cheol-Min
CM
Yang
Dong Young
DY
Kim
Hirofumi
H
Kanoh
Katsumi
K
Kaneko
D003460:Crystallization; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry; D008422:Materials Testing; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010316:Particle Size; D011093:Polyethylene Terephthalates / Q000737:chemistry*; D013499:Surface Properties; D013696:Temperature
D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011093:Polyethylene Terephthalates