title: Wafer-scale monodomain films of spontaneously aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes.
abstract: The one-dimensional character of electrons, phonons and excitons in individual single-walled carbon nanotubes leads to extremely anisotropic electronic, thermal and optical properties. However, despite significant efforts to develop ways to produce large-scale architectures of aligned nanotubes, macroscopic manifestations of such properties remain limited. Here, we show that large (>cm(2)) monodomain films of aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes can be prepared using slow vacuum filtration. The produced films are globally aligned within ±1.5° (a nematic order parameter of ∼1) and are highly packed, containing 1 × 10(6) nanotubes in a cross-sectional area of 1 μm(2). The method works for nanotubes synthesized by various methods, and film thickness is controllable from a few nanometres to ∼100 nm. We use the approach to create ideal polarizers in the terahertz frequency range and, by combining the method with recently developed sorting techniques, highly aligned and chirality-enriched nanotube thin-film devices. Semiconductor-enriched devices exhibit polarized light emission and polarization-dependent photocurrent, as well as anisotropic conductivities and transistor action with high on/off ratios.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Weilu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China.
authors.forename: Lijuan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9766-7925
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Sidong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
authors.forename: Erik H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Hároz
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Doorn
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Weipeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vajtai
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Pulickel M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Ajayan
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: W Wade
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.|Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Robert H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Hauge
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.|Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.|Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Junichiro
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kono