Fabrication of transparent, flexible and conductive films using as-grown few-walled carbon nanotubes

We demonstrate the fabrication of transparent, flexible, and conductive (TFC) films using as-grown few-walled CNTs (FCNTs). We used a chemical vapor deposition method with acetylene gas as a feedstock and optimized the growth conditions to obtain thin diameter (<10 nm), ultralong (>1 mm), high quality FCNTs. After a simple ultrasonication, we obtained uniformly dispersed FCNTs in suspension and spraycoated them onto various substrates, such as Si wafers, glass, and transparent and flexible polymeric sheets. We mainly focused on varying the sheet resistance and transmittance as a function of the FCNTs film thickness and found that the minimum film thickness to exhibit appropriate functionality was 60 nm. The obtained sheet resistance of the TFC films on the polymeric substrates reached about 16 kΩ/sq., which is lower than that found in previous reports.