A combination of capillary assembly and dielectrophoresis for wafer scale integration of carbon nanotubes-based electrical and mechanical devices

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel wafer-scale integration method combining capillary assembly and dielectrophoresis to precisely position and align carbon nanotubes for electrical and mechanical device applications, demonstrating high-density interconnections and NEMS functionalities.

Contribution

It presents a new hybrid process for CNT integration that achieves precise spatial control, high-density low-resistance interconnections, and functional NEMS arrays at wafer scale.

Findings

Achieved low-resistance interconnections of 4.4 x 10^-5 Ω·m.

Demonstrated CNT resonance frequencies between 1.7 MHz and 10.5 MHz.

Enabled precise alignment and placement of CNTs for device applications.

Abstract

The wafer scale integration of carbon nanotubes (CNT) remains a challenge for electronic and electromechanical applications. We propose a novel CNT integration process relying on the combination of controlled capillary assembly and buried electrode dielectrophoresis (DEP). This process enables to monitor the precise spatial localization of a high density of CNTs and their alignment in a pre-defined direction. Large arrays of independent and low resistivity (4.4 x 10^-5 {\Omega}.m) interconnections were achieved using this hybrid assembly with double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWNT). Finally, arrays of suspended individual CNT carpets have been realized and we demonstrate their potential use as functional nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) by monitoring their resonance frequencies (ranging between 1.7 MHz to 10.5MHz) using a Fabry-Perot interferometer.