Separation of single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWINTs) by functionalized polydimethylsiloxane

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibit outstanding mechanical, optical and electrical properties suggesting great potential for various applications. To achieve optimal performance in proposed applications, sorting of SWNTs by their electronic types is necessary. In this work, we investigated the sorting effect in aligned SWNT networks prepared by well dispersed SWNTs. We used aligned SWNT networks between the electrodes by using dielectrophoresis. Functionalized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) was used for selectively detaching semiconducting SWNTs from aligned SWNT networks.