title: Ice-assisted transfer of carbon nanotube arrays.
abstract: Decoupling the growth and the application of nanomaterials by transfer is an important issue in nanotechnology. Here, we developed an efficient transfer technique for carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays by using ice as a binder to temporarily bond the CNT array and the target substrate. Ice makes it an ultraclean transfer because the evaporation of ice ensures that no contaminants are introduced. The transferred superaligned carbon nanotube (SACNT) arrays not only keep their original appearance and initial alignment but also inherit their spinnability, which is the most desirable feature. The transfer-then-spin strategy can be employed to fabricate patterned CNT arrays, which can act as 3-dimensional electrodes in CNT thermoacoustic chips. Besides, the flip-chipped CNTs are promising field electron emitters. Furthermore, the ice-assisted transfer technique provides a cost-effective solution for mass production of SACNTs, giving CNT technologies a competitive edge, and this method may inspire new ways to transfer other nanomaterials.
authors: Department of Physics & Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center and ‡School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, P. R. China.
authors: Haoming
authors: H
authors: Wei
authors: Yang
authors: Y
authors: Wei
authors: Xiaoyang
authors: X
authors: Lin
authors: Peng
authors: P
authors: Liu
authors: Shoushan
authors: S
authors: Fan
authors: Kaili
authors: K
authors: Jiang
keywords: Ice-assisted; carbon nanotube array; field emission; thermoacoustic chip; transfer