Thin films of single wall carbon nanotubes and graphene for electronic application

Invisible electronic materials are of special value for many military and consumer applications, such as antistatic coatings, transparent loudspeakers, flat panel displays and photovoltaic devices. Metal oxides are the most widely used materials in such applications. However, they are costly materials with limited mechanical properties. Due to exceptional electrical, mechanical, optical, chemical and heat properties use of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and graphene is anticipated for construction of transparent electronic devices. SWCNTs are unique one dimensional system which can be envisioned as rolled single sheet of graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. This project consists of four tasks: synthesis of SWCNT and graphene based colloids, separation of SWCNTs and multilayered graphenes, deposition of thin films by different techniques and preparation of transparent electronic devices. At first, SWCNTs and graphene must be dispersed in aqueous or organic solvents, respectively. Next task is the separation of metallic and semiconducting SWCNTs as well as multilayer graphene to single ones, respectively. Further, the different deposition techniques will be applied in order to obtain homogeneous, aligned, uniform, conductive and transparent films. Finally, transparent loudspeaker and OLED (organic light emitting diode) based on SWCNT/graphene will be constructed.