Aerosol feeding of catalyst precursor for CNT synthesis and highly conductive and transparent film fabrication

• Catalyst precursor, ferrocene, is introduced in the form of aerosol particles.
• CNTs were collected downstream of the reactor by filtering the flow in the form of thin films.
• CNT films were transferred on a desirable substrate by a dry transfer technique.
• Our best samples exhibited sheet resistance of 86 Ω/sq. for doped CNTs at transmittance of T = 90%.

A mixture of single-walled and double-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was synthesised by an aerosol CVD (floating catalyst) method for fabrication of highly conductive and transparent films. The feedstock solution contained ferrocene as a catalyst particle precursor, toluene and ethylene as carbon sources and thiophene as a promoter was introduced in the reactor in a hydrogen atmosphere and heated up in the temperature range of 1000–1200 °C. The product was collected downstream of the reactor by filtering the flow in the form of thin films with adjustable thicknesses (transmittance) and subsequently transferred on a desirable substrate by a dry transfer technique. This method allowed us to fabricate excellent quality CNT films with a high optoelectronic performance: with a sheet resistance of 86 Ω/sq. at the transmittance of T = 90%. To our best knowledge, for the first time the CNT transparent and conductive thin films were fabricated from direct filtration of gas phase grown CNTs using hydrocarbon as a carbon source.