Fabrication and integration of horizontally aligned carbon nanotube — C60 films for UV sensors

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising for microsystems applications, yet few techniques effectively enable integration of CNTs with precise control of placement and alignment of the CNTs at sufficiently high densities necessary for compelling mechanical or electrical performance. This paper explores new methods for scalable integration of dense, horizontally aligned (HA) CNTs with patterned electrodes. Our technique involves the synthesis of vertically aligned (VA) CNTs directly on a conductive underlayer and subsequent mechanical transformation into HA-CNTs, thus making electrical contact between two electrodes. We compare elasto-capillary folding and mechanical rolling as methods for transforming VA-CNTs, which lead to distinctly different HA-CNT morphologies and potentially impact material and device properties. As an example application of this novel CNT morphology, we investigate fabrication of electrically addressable CNT-C
₆₀
hybrid thin films that we previously demonstrated as photodetectors. We synthesize these assemblies by crystallizing C
₆₀
from dispersion on HA-CNT thin-film scaffoldings. HA-CNTs fabricated by rolling result in relatively low packing density, so C
₆₀
crystals embed inside the HA-CNT matrix during synthesis. On the other hand, C
₆₀
crystallization is restricted to near the surface of HA-CNT films made by the elasto-capillary process.