Nanotechweb Showblog

« Walk this way… | Main | Scanning the show for SPMs »

SWNTs rolled over ready for stamping

When it comes to flattening vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), the diameter of the “rolling pin” is critical. As Sameh Tawfick explained in his talk yesterday afternoon, if the pin is too large then it buckles the CNTs and destroys the alignment. If the roller is too small then it gets caught up in the forest of nanotubes and leads to patchy densification.

The team’s goal is to prepare a well defined sheet of the material that can then be used for contact printing structures such as interconnects. And who would be interested in this? Well, Intel for one, if the author affiliations provide a clue.

Some more facts and figures just in - Tawfick revealed that a 0.6 mm pin is ideal for a 1 mm high CNT forest. Once flattened, the structures are dipped in solvent to further densify the material before transfer printing.

Related story -

Inventors roll out nanotube paper
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/33089

Posted by James Tyrrell on December 3, 2008 5:23 AM | Permalink