Posted: Mar 02, 2015 |
An ice-assisted transfer technique for carbon nanotube arrays
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(Nanowerk News) In summary, by following the icing phenomenon in daily life, a research team from Tsinghua University developed an ice-assisted transfer technique to transfer carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays onto a variety of target substrates by using ice as a binder.
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Ice is not only efficient but also ultraclean for the CNT transfer, as it does not introduce any binder remnants after evaporation. Consequently, the technique provides a solution for transferring SACNT arrays with preserved spinnability.
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The team reported their findings in Nano Letters ("Ice-Assisted Transfer of Carbon Nanotube Arrays").
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Comparative studies revealed that the transfer procedure introduced no significant changes to the CNT films spun from the transferred CNT arrays on target substrates. It is thus a feasible way to decouple the growth and the application of superaligned carbon nanotube arrays, and the mass production of superaligned carbon nanotube will benefit from the transfer-then-spin strategy as it can greatly improve the recovery efficiency of Si wafers.
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The ice-assisted transfer technique can find its application in more fields. The transfer-then-spin strategy was utilized to produce patterned CNT arrays, which can be used as 3D electrodes for thermoacoustic chips to simplify the manufacturing process.
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Moreover, flip-chipped CNT arrays are also promising field electron emitters, as CNT tips are well aligned on the array surface.
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The ultraclean ice-assisted transfer technique will greatly promote the applications of CNT arrays and give CNT technologies a competitive advantage, and it is also attractive to extend this technique to transfer other nanomaterials and to assist the microtransfer printing.
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