Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Carbon Nanotube Thin Films for High-Performance Flexible Electronics Applications

  • Review
  • Published:
Topics in Current Chemistry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Carbon nanotube thin films have attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in flexible/stretchable electronics applications, such as flexible displays and wearable health monitoring devices. Due to recent progress in the post-purification processes of carbon nanotubes, high-purity semiconducting carbon nanotubes can be obtained for thin-film transistor applications. One of the key challenges for the practical use of carbon nanotube thin-film transistors is the thin-film formation technology, which is required for achieving not only high performance but also uniform device characteristics. In this paper, after describing the fundamental thin-film formation techniques, we review the recent progress of thin-film formation technologies for carbon nanotube-based flexible electronics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Copyright 2013 American Chemical Society [78]

Fig. 3

Copyright 2014 American Chemical Society [79]

Fig. 4

Copyright 2016 Springer Nature [90]

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Snow ES, Novak JP, Campbell PM, Park D (2003) Random networks of carbon nanotubes as an electronic material. Appl Phys Lett 82:2145–2147

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Cao Q et al (2008) Medium-scale carbon nanotube thin-film integrated circuits on flexible plastic substrates. Nature 454:495–502

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Hu LB, Hecht DS, Gruner G (2010) Carbon nanotube thin films: fabrication, properties, and applications. Chem Rev 110:5790–5844

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Sun DM et al (2011) Flexible high-performance carbon nanotube integrated circuits. Nat Nanotechnol 6:156–161

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Sun DM et al (2013) Mouldable all-carbon integrated circuits. Nat. Commun. 4:2302

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Wu ZC et al (2004) Transparent, conductive carbon nanotube films. Science 305:1273–1276

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Bradley K, Gabriel JCP, Gruner G (2003) Flexible nanotube electronics. Nano Lett 3:1353–1355

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. McCreery RL (2008) Advanced carbon electrode materials for molecular electrochemistry. Chem Rev 108:2646–2687

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Chopra S, McGuire K, Gothard N, Rao AM, Pham A (2003) Selective gas detection using a carbon nanotube sensor. Appl Phys Lett 83:2280–2282

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Woo CS et al (2007) Fabrication of flexible and transparent single-wall carbon nanotube gas sensors by vacuum filtration and poly(dimethyl siloxane) mold transfer. Microelectron Eng 84:1610–1613

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Kim J, Yoo H, Ba VAP, Shin N, Hong S (2018) Dye-functionalized sol–gel matrix on carbon nanotubes for refreshable and flexible gas sensors. Sci Rep 8:11958

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Ly SY (2008) Diagnosis of copper ions in vascular tracts using a fluorine-doped carbon nanotube sensor. Talanta 74:1635–1641

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Melzer K et al (2015) Flexible electrolyte-gated ion-selective sensors based on carbon nanotube networks. IEEE Sens J 15:3127–3134

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Xuan X, Park JY (2018) A miniaturized and flexible cadmium and lead ion detection sensor based on micro-patterned reduced graphene oxide/carbon nanotube/bismuth composite electrodes. Sensor Actuators B 255:1220–1227

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Cai H, Cao XN, Jiang Y, He PG, Fang YZ (2003) Carbon nanotube-enhanced electrochemical DNA biosensor for DNA hybridization detection. Anal Bioanal Chem 375:287–293

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Besteman K, Lee JO, Wiertz FGM, Heering HA, Dekker C (2003) Enzyme-coated carbon nanotubes as single-molecule biosensors. Nano Lett 3:727–730

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Laurila T, Sainio S, Caro MA (2017) Hybrid carbon based nanomaterials for electrochemical detection of biomolecules. Prog Mater Sci 88:499–594

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Sekitani T et al (2008) A rubberlike stretchable active matrix using elastic conductors. Science 321:1468–1472

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Hu L, Hecht DS, Gruner G (2004) Percolation in transparent and conducting carbon nanotube networks. Nano Lett 4:2513–2517

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Kaskela A et al (2010) Aerosol-synthesized SWCNT networks with tunable conductivity and transparency by a dry transfer technique. Nano Lett 10:4349–4355

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Wang HL et al (2010) High-performance field effect transistors from solution processed carbon nanotubes. ACS Nano 4:6659–6664

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Asada Y et al (2010) High-performance thin-film transistors with DNA-assisted solution processing of isolated single-walled carbon nanotubes. Adv Mater 22:2698–2701

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Lin YH, Lu F, Wang J (2004) Disposable carbon nanotube modified screen-printed biosensor for amperometric detection of organophosphorus pesticides and nerve agents. Electroanal. 16:145–149

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Hur SH et al (2005) Printed thin-film transistors and complementary logic gates that use polymer-coated single-walled carbon nanotube networks. J Appl Phys 98:114302

    Google Scholar 

  25. Takenobu T et al (2009) Ink-jet printing of carbon nanotube thin-film transistors on flexible plastic substrates. Appl Phys Express 2:025005

    Google Scholar 

  26. Ha MJ et al (2010) Printed, sub-3 V digital circuits on plastic from aqueous carbon nanotube inks. ACS Nano 4:4388–4395

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Cao X et al (2016) Fully screen-printed, large-area, and flexible active-matrix electrochromic displays using carbon nanotube thin-film transistors. ACS Nano 10:9816–9822

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Fukaya N, Kim DY, Kishimoto S, Noda S, Ohno Y (2014) One-step sub-10 mum patterning of carbon-nanotube thin films for transparent conductor applications. ACS Nano 8:3285–3293

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Saito R, Dresselhaus G, Dresselhaous MS (1998) Physical properties of carbon nanotubes. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore

    Google Scholar 

  30. Arnold MS, Green AA, Hulvat JF, Stupp SI, Hersam MC (2006) Sorting carbon nanotubes by electronic structure using density differentiation. Nat Nanotechnol 1:60–65

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Tanaka T et al (2009) Simple and scalable gel-based separation of metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotubes. Nano Lett 9:1497–1500

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Liu HP, Tanaka T, Urabe Y, Kataura H (2013) High-efficiency single-chirality separation of carbon nanotubes using temperature-controlled gel chromatography. Nano Lett 13:1996–2003

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Wu J et al (2012) Short channel field-effect transistors from highly enriched semiconducting carbon nanotubes. Nano Res 5:388–394

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Tanaka T, Jin HH, Miyata Y, Kataura H (2008) High-yield separation of metallic and semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes by agarose gel electrophoresis. Appl Phys Express 1:114001

    Google Scholar 

  35. Qiu S et al (2018) Solution-processing of high-purity semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes for electronics devices. Adv Mater 30:1800750

    Google Scholar 

  36. Lefebvre J et al (2017) High-purity semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes: a key enabling material in emerging electronics. Acc Chem Res 50:2479–2486

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Fuhrer MS et al (2000) Crossed nanotube junctions. Science 288:494–497

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Nirmalraj PN, Lyons PE, De S, Coleman JN, Boland JJ (2009) Electrical connectivity in single-walled carbon nanotube networks. Nano Lett 9:3890–3895

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Znidarsic A et al (2013) Spatially resolved transport properties of pristine and doped single-walled carbon nanotube networks. J Phys Chem C 117:13324–13330

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Kocabas C et al (2007) Experimental and theoretical studies of transport through large scale, partially aligned arrays of single-walled carbon nanotubes in thin film type transistors. Nano Lett 7:1195–1202

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Kang SJ et al (2007) High-performance electronics using dense, perfectly aligned arrays of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nat Nanotechnol 2:230–236

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Ago H et al (2005) Aligned growth of isolated single-walled carbon nanotubes programmed by atomic arrangement of substrate surface. Chem Phys Lett 408:433–438

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Han S, Liu XL, Zhou CW (2005) Template-free directional growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on a- and r-plane sapphire. J Am Chem Soc 127:5294–5295

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Hirotani J, Kishimoto S, Ohno Y (2018) Origins of the variability of the electrical characteristics of solution-processed carbon nanotube thin-film transistors and integrated circuits. Nanoscale Adv. https://doi.org/10.1039/c1038na00184g

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Ishida M, Nihey F (2008) Estimating the yield and characteristics of random network carbon nanotube transistors. Appl Phys Lett 92:163507

    Google Scholar 

  46. Islam AE et al (2012) Effect of variations in diameter and density on the statistics of aligned array carbon-nanotube field effect transistors. J Appl Phys 111:054511

    Google Scholar 

  47. Ohmori S, Ihara K, Nihey F, Kuwahara Y, Saito T (2012) Low variability with high performance in thin-film transistors of semiconducting carbon nanotubes achieved by shortening tube lengths. RSC Adv 2:12408

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  48. Asada Y et al (2011) Thin-film transistors with length-sorted DNA-wrapped single-wall carbon nanotubes. J Phys Chem C 115:270–273

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  49. Shirae H et al (2015) Overcoming the quality–quantity tradeoff in dispersion and printing of carbon nanotubes by a repetitive dispersion–extraction process. Carbon 91:20–29

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Miyata Y et al (2011) Length-sorted semiconducting carbon nanotubes for high-mobility thin film transistors. Nano Res 4:963–970

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  51. Toshimitsu F, Nakashima N (2014) Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes sorting with a removable solubilizer based on dynamic supramolecular coordination chemistry. Nat Commun 5:5041

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Moisala A et al (2006) Single-walled carbon nanotube synthesis using ferrocene and iron pentacarbonyl in a laminar flow reactor. Chem Eng Sci 61:4393–4402

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Zavodchikova MY et al (2009) Carbon nanotube thin film transistors based on aerosol methods. Nanotechnology 20:085201

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  54. Lefebvre J, Ding J (2017) Carbon nanotube thin film transistors by droplet electrophoresis. Mater Today Commun 10:72–79

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Laiho P, Mustonen K, Ohno Y, Maruyama S, Kauppinen EI (2017) Dry and direct deposition of aerosol-synthesized single-walled carbon nanotubes by thermophoresis. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 9:20738–20747

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  56. Laiho P et al (2018) Wafer-scale thermophoretic dry deposition of single-walled carbon nanotube thin films. ACS Omega 3:1322–1328

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  57. Kaskela A et al (2016) Highly individual SWCNTs for high performance thin film electronics. Carbon 103:228–234

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  58. Ding EX, Zhang Q, Wei N, Khan A, Kauppinen EI (2018) High-performance single-walled carbon nanotube transparent conducting film fabricated by using low feeding rate of ethanol solution. R Soc Open Sci 5:180392

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  59. Wang BW et al (2018) Continuous fabrication of meter-scale single-wall carbon nanotube films and their use in flexible and transparent integrated circuits. Adv Mater 30:e1802057

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  60. Zhou WW, Zhan ST, Ding L, Liu J (2012) General rules for selective growth of enriched semiconducting single walled carbon nanotubes with water vapor as in situ etchant. J Am Chem Soc 134:14019–14026

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  61. Yang F et al (2016) Templated synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes with specific structure. Acc Chem Res 49:606–615

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  62. Yang F et al (2014) Chirality-specific growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on solid alloy catalysts. Nature 510:522–524

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  63. Li JH, Franklin AD, Liu J (2015) Gate-free electrical breakdown of metallic pathways in single-walled carbon nanotube crossbar networks. Nano Lett 15:6058–6065

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  64. Otsuka K, Inoue T, Chiashi S, Maruyama S (2014) Selective removal of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes in full length by organic film-assisted electrical breakdown. Nanoscale 6:8831–8835

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  65. Collins PC, Arnold MS, Avouris P (2001) Engineering carbon nanotubes and nanotube circuits using electrical breakdown. Science 292:706–709

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  66. Otsuka K, Inoue T, Shimomura Y, Chiashi S, Maruyama S (2016) Field emission and anode etching during formation of length-controlled nanogaps in electrical breakdown of horizontally aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nanoscale 8:16363–16370

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  67. Otsuka K, Inoue T, Shimomura Y, Chiashi S, Maruyama S (2017) Water-assisted self-sustained burning of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes for scalable transistor fabrication. Nano Res 10:3248–3260

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  68. Yang CM et al (2005) Selective removal of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes with small diameters by using nitric and sulfuric acids. J Phys Chem B 109:19242–19248

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  69. Zhang GY et al (2006) Selective etching of metallic carbon nanotubes by gas-phase reaction. Science 314:974–977

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  70. Wei DC et al (2009) Selective electrochemical etching of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Adv Funct Mater 19:3618–3624

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  71. LeMieux MC et al (2008) Self-sorted, aligned nanotube networks for thin-film transistors. Science 321:101–104

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  72. LeMieux MC et al (2009) Solution assembly of organized carbon nanotube networks for thin-film transistors. ACS Nano 3:4089–4097

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  73. Bardecker JA et al (2008) Directed assembly of single-walled carbon nanotubes via drop-casting onto a UV-patterned photosensitive monolayer. J Am Chem Soc 130:7226–7227

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  74. Shimizu M, Fujii S, Asano S, Tanaka T, Kataura H (2013) Fabrication of homogeneous thin films of semiconductor-enriched single-wall carbon nanotubes for uniform-quality transistors by using immersion coating. Appl Phys Express 6:105103

    Google Scholar 

  75. Jeong M, Lee K, Choi E, Kim A, Lee SB (2012) Spray-coated carbon nanotube thin-film transistors with striped transport channels. Nanotechnology 23:505203

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  76. Maeda M et al (2015) Printed, short-channel, top-gate carbon nanotube thin-film transistors on flexible plastic film. Appl Phys Express 8:045102

    Google Scholar 

  77. Liang YR, Xia JY, Liang XL (2016) Short channel carbon nanotube thin film transistors with high on/off ratio fabricated by two-step fringing field dielectrophoresis. Sci Bull 61:794–800

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  78. Shimizu M, Fujii S, Tanaka T, Kataura H (2013) Effects of surfactants on the electronic transport properties of thin-film transistors of single-wall carbon nanotubes. J Phys Chem C 117:11744–11749

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  79. Kiriya D et al (2014) Design of surfactant-substrate interactions for roll-to-roll assembly of carbon nanotubes for thin-film transistors. J Am Chem Soc 136:11188–11194

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  80. Tian B et al (2016) Wafer scale fabrication of carbon nanotube thin film transistors with high yield. J Appl Phys 120:034501

    Google Scholar 

  81. Chen BY et al (2016) Highly uniform carbon nanotube field-effect transistors and medium scale integrated circuits. Nano Lett 16:5120–5128

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  82. Xiang L et al (2018) Low-power carbon nanotube-based integrated circuits that can be transferred to biological surfaces. Nat Electron 1:237–245

    Google Scholar 

  83. Geier ML et al (2015) Solution-processed carbon nanotube thin-film complementary static random access memory. Nat Nanotechnol 10:944–948

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  84. Li XL et al (2007) Langmuir–Blodgett assembly of densely aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes from bulk materials. J Am Chem Soc 129:4890–4891

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  85. Cao Q et al (2013) Arrays of single-walled carbon nanotubes with full surface coverage for high-performance electronics. Nat Nanotechnol 8:180–186

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  86. Joo Y, Brady GJ, Arnold MS, Gopalan P (2014) Dose-controlled, floating evaporative self-assembly and alignment of semiconducting carbon nanotubes from organic solvents. Langmuir 30:3460–3466

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  87. Brady GJ et al (2016) Quasi-ballistic carbon nanotube array transistors with current density exceeding Si and GaAs. Sci Adv 2:e1601240

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  88. Cao Y et al (2016) Radio frequency transistors using aligned semiconducting carbon nanotubes with current-gain cutoff frequency and maximum oscillation frequency simultaneously greater than 70 GHz. ACS Nano 10:6782–6790

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  89. Wu J, Antaris A, Gong M, Dai H (2014) Top-down patterning and self-assembly for regular arrays of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes. Adv Mater 26:6151–6156

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  90. He XW et al (2016) Wafer-scale monodomain films of spontaneously aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nat Nanotechnol 11:633–638

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan

    Jun Hirotani & Yutaka Ohno

  2. Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan

    Yutaka Ohno

Authors
  1. Jun Hirotani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yutaka Ohno
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yutaka Ohno.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article is part of the Topical Collection “Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Preparation, Property and Application”; edited by Yan Li, Shigeo Maruyama.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hirotani, J., Ohno, Y. Carbon Nanotube Thin Films for High-Performance Flexible Electronics Applications. Top Curr Chem (Z) 377, 3 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41061-018-0227-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41061-018-0227-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation