Unzipped Nanotube Sheet Films Converted from Spun Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes by O-2 Plasma

Abstract

Large-scale graphene or carbon nanotube (CNT) films are good candidates for transparent flexible electrodes, and the strong interest in graphene and CNT films has motivated the scalable production of a good-conductivity and an optically transmitting film. Unzipping techniques for converting CNTs to graphene are especially worthy of notice. Here, we performed nanotube unzipping of the spun multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to produce networked graphene nanoribbon (GNR) sheet films using an O-2 plasma etching method, after which we produced the spun MWCNT film by continually pulling MWCNTs down from the vertical well aligned MWCNTs on the substrate. The electrical resistance was slightly decreased and the optical transmittance was significantly increased when the spun MWCNT films were etched for 20 min by O-2 plasma of 100 mA. Plasma etching for the optimized time, which does not change the thickness of the spun MWCNT films, improved the electrical resistance and the optical transmittance.