Toward large-scale integration of carbon nanotubes

This paper presents a large-scale assembly method to deposit discrete multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) across gaps present in an electrode array. A parametric study showed that MWCNTs dispersed in a liquid could be deposited to individually span gaps by combining an alternating current (ac) and a direct current (dc) electric field in a given ratio; it was shown that the ac field (5 MHz) serves to selectively attract and the dc field to guide individual deposition. Repeated trials demonstrated accurate, discrete, and aligned deposition at room temperature with 90% yield over an electrode array having 100 gaps.