Facile construction of electrically-conductive carbon patterns from a cheap coal-type pitch and their application to electric heating devices

•Electrically conductive carbon patterns (ECPs) from pitch were prepared by proton beam lithography and pyrolysis.•Well-defined pith patterns were obtained by proton beam lithography at the optimized fluence.•The pitch patterns were converted to the ECPs with imperfect graphitic structure by pyrolysis.•The ECPs exhibited a low sheet resistance and a good electrical heating performance.

Electrically-conductive carbon patterns (ECPs) from cheap pitch thin films were fabricated using a simple proton beam lithography and pyrolysis. Well-defined negative-type pitch patterns were formed at the optimized fluence of 3 × 1015 ions cm−2, and then pyrolyzed at various temperatures to create ECPs. The precursory pitch patterns formed at the optimized conditions were successfully temperature-dependently converted to the ECPs by pyrolysis. The formed ECPs through pyrolysis at a higher temperature exhibited good electrical conductivity. Moreover, the ECPs exhibited good electric heating characteristics, demonstrating the possibility of using the ECPs as a cheap electric heating element.

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