Electrical and Optical Properties of Highly Flexible and Transparent Single Wall Carbon Nanotube Thin Films

Abstract

Density controlled single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) thin films were fabricated on a flexible and transparent PDMS substrate using vacuum filteration and mold transfer method (Fig.1(a)). We performed measurement of optical transparency of the SWCNT thin film depending on SWCNT density to examine the properties of optical transmission through the network thin film. The optical transparency of broad-band light was inversely proportional to SWCNT density and electrical conductivity (Fig.1(b)). In addition, the dependence of thin-film optical-density on alignment of SWCNT and on SWCNT length is discussed. Absorption spectroscopy is also measured for the search of effective band-gap in the visible range of 400-700 nm. Finally, we investigate the optical-polarization-dependent optical-density of the SWCNT thin film, which provides insight about interaction of SWCNT with optical light as a function of the relative orientation of SWCNT with respect to polarization of incident light.