Analysis of variance on thickness and electrical conductivity measurements of carbon nanotube thin films

Abstract

One of the major challenges towards controlling the transfer of electrical and mechanical properties of nanotubes into nanocomposites is the lack of adequate measurement systems to quantify the variations in bulk properties while the nanotubes were used as the reinforcement material. In this study, we conducted one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on thickness and conductivity measurements. By analyzing the data collected from both experienced and inexperienced operators, we found some operation details users might overlook that resulted in variations, since conductivity measurements of CNT thin films are very sensitive to thickness measurements. In addition, we demonstrated how issues in measurements damaged samples and limited the number of replications resulting in large variations in the electrical conductivity measurement results. Based on this study, we proposed a faster, more reliable approach to measure the thickness of CNT thin films that operators can follow to make these measurement processes less dependent on operator skills.