Evaluation of the gauge factor for single-walled carbon nanonets on the flexible plastic substrates by nano-transfer-printing

Abstract

Nano-transfer-printing (nTP) is increasingly used for the micro-fabrication of nanoscale materials onto flexible plastic substrates. This paper reports a nTP process for single-walled carbon nanonets (SWCNNs) for use in strain sensors. Traditional SWCNNs grown on a silicon substrate by alcohol catalytic chemical vapor deposition (ACCVD) can serve as strain-sensing elements in strain sensors and nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) sensors, but ACCVD is not well suited to the task. To improve SWCNN fabrication, this work deposits a parylene-C thin film on SWCNNs for transfer-printing onto flexible plastic substrates with polyimide tape. Quantification of the fabricated SWCNN strain-sensing ability (gauge factor) is performed by comparing two specimens with different pattern features and substrates. The gauge factor is measured by tensile testing. SWCNN density variations relative to the observed gauge factors are discussed. Results show that SWCNN gauge factors range from 1.46 to 8.22, depending on the substrate and pattern width. It is further observed that the gauge factor of the presented SWCNN thin film increases when the width of the SWCNN decreases to the low micro-dimensions, i.e. below 40 µm, indicating a significant scaling factor.

Assembly of Highly Aligned Carbon Nanotubes Using an Electro-Fluidic Assembly Process

“…Gauge factor (GF), which is the slope of the relative resistance change with respect the applied strain, is calculated to be 2.7 for our CNT device. The GF value is close to that of CNT-based devices reported previously , and larger than that of commercial metal strain gauges (GF ∼ 2) …”

Transfer Printing and its Applications in Flexible Electronic Devices

“…Capable of assembling high-performance electronic devices onto a non-conventional (e.g., flexible or stretchable) substrate, the transfer printing technique has enabled wide-ranging applications from functional components to integrated device systems (Figure 14). The demonstrated functional components include transistors [22,23,35,41,52,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102], energy-harvesting devices [103,104], light-emitting diodes (LED) [27,105,106,107,108], flexible capacitors [6,109], thin-film solar cells [110,111,112], memories [1,113,114], and various functional sensors [115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123]. A few representative system demonstrations are printed flexible integrated circuits [124,125,126,127,128,129], transient electronics [130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137], flexible displays […”

“…A simple and fast nano-transfer printing (nTP) method that operates in ambient conditions [ 144 , 145 ] has shown potential to fabricate complementary inverter circuits, high-performance plastic transistors, and contact electrodes, which have electrical properties that are comparable to those fabricated with the conventional method [ 146 ]. Exploring the nTP method easily transfers the single-walled carbon nanonets (SWCNNs)-based flexible strain sensors that are fabricated on the Si substrate onto polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) and polyimide (PI) substrates with a superior strain sensitivity and linearity ( Figure 15 ) [ 122 ].…”

“… (1) Flexible strain-sensing devices fabricated on ( a ) a PEN and ( b ) PI substrate through transfer printing, with the (2) fabricating process of the single-walled carbon nanonet specimens. Reproduced with permission from [ 122 ]; Copyright 2011, IOP Publishing Ltd. …”

Development of a simulator for modelling of electrical and mechanical properties of nanocomposite materials and sensors

“…Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have extremely high mechanical strength as well as very low electrical resistances. As a result, many nanocomposite materials are based on dispersion of CNTs in a polymer body [6], [7], [8], [9]. Despite the large amount of Fig.…”