integrated circuits and display drivers, particularly in applications that make use of thin film transistor applications. However, in such CNT network devices, the performance is usually limited by high electrical and thermal resistances at the inter-tube junctions. Here, we present a novel method to selectively deposit metal at the inter-tube junctions. As these junctions are the most-resistive regions, we are able to locally heat the junctions by passing currents through the CNT network. In the presence of metal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) precursors in a vacuum environment, we deposit metals selectively, thereby nanosoldering the inter-tube junctions. We show that the metals indeed start to form at the inter-tube junctions, which directly indicates that the inter-tube junctions are indeed the spots of high thermal resistance. We also show that the effects of nanosoldering vary according to the types of metals deposited, and further, we show that our nanosoldering technique can effectively improve the overall device performance by more than an order of magnitude.

Nanosoldering carbon nanotube junctions with metal via local chemical vapor deposition for improved device performance

253rd National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.