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APPLICATIONS
OF TECHNOLOGY:
- Commercial
– potential scalable technique for industrialization
of nanoscale carbon-based electronic devices
- Research
-- will enable detailed studies of carbon nanotubes (transport,
mechanical measures, and spectroscopy)
ADVANTAGES:
- Allows precise control of deposition of CNTs at predetermined
locations
- Enables easily directed assembly of carbon nanotubes onto
a substrate
- Vastly increase CNT device yield
- Increases production time
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(a) Scanning Electron Microscope image of
the silicon MEMS device for nanotube deposition. The inset
shows the teeth pairs in the center of the device. (b) A straight
nanotube stretches across a pair of contacts.
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ABSTRACT:
Alex
Zettl and Yan Mei Wang have taken another step toward enabling
the commercialization of nanoscale carbon-based electronic
devices through devising a deposition method that results
in the successful self-assembly of carbon nanotubes. Although
many carbon nanotube (CNT) based electronic devices have shown
great potential for application, their integration into larger
units such as integrated circuits has not been practical because
of the precision required in the deposition of the CNTs at
predetermined locations. Up to now, CNT devices have been
made one unit at a time using an inefficient random search
and bond method.
Zettl
and Wang have developed a more efficient method, allowing
the CNTs to self-assemble onto a Si MEMS (microelectromechanical
systems) assembler device (~3 mm wide). Single CNTs are suspended
in acetone and dropped onto a predetermined position on these
pre-etched thin Silicon wafers. The acetone dries in 20 seconds,
at which time almost all of the CNTs attach to the patterned
contact area in the Si wafer, thus assembling in a pre-determined
manner. The entire process takes less than one or two minutes,
and the successful yield of single CNT devices is 20–50%.
This technique could potentially serve as the basis for scalable
production of CNT electronics devices.
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