Direct printing of aligned carbon nanotube patterns for high-performance thin film devices

Abstract

The aligned assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on substrate presents a significant bottleneck in the fabrication of high-performance thin film devices. Here, we report a direct printing method to prepare laterally aligned thick CNT patterns over large surface regions. In this method, CNT forests were grown selectively on specific regions of one substrate, and the forest patterns were transferred on another SiO2 substrate in a laterally aligned formation while keeping their original shapes. The degree of alignment was characterized via electrical measurement and polarized Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, we demonstrated high-performance field-effect transistors and gas sensors using our method.