Carbon nanotubes bring flexible electronics closer to reality

A new study has revealed that a semiconductor material carbon nanotubes (CNT) has brought flexible electronics closer to reality, which will improve the reliability and performance of transistors and circuits based on it.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Northwestern University examined the effect of a fluoropolymer coating called polyvinyledenedifluoride-tetrafluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE) on single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) transistors and ring oscillator circuits, and demonstrated that these coatings can substantially improve the performance of single-walled carbon nanotube devices.

Researcher Ananth Dodabalapur said that they attributed the improvements to the polar nature of PVDF-TrFE that mitigates the negative effect of impurities and defects on the performance of semiconductor single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Co-author Mark Hersam said that the single-walled carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (FETs) have characteristics similar to polycrystalline silicon FETs, a thin film silicon transistor currently used to drive the pixels in organic light-emitting (OLED) displays.

Hersam added that the single-walled carbon nanotubes are more advantageous than polycrystalline silicon in that they are solution-processable or printable, which potentially could lower manufacturing costs.

He continued that the mechanical flexibility of single-walled carbon nanotubes also should allow them to be incorporated into emerging applications such as flexible electronics and wearable electronics.

The study is published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.