Electrical conductivity of carbon nanofiber reinforced resins: potentiality of Tunneling Atomic Force Microscopy (TUNA) technique

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the use of Tunneling Atomic Force Microscopy (TUNA) to analyze electrical pathways in carbon nanofiber reinforced epoxy nanocomposites, revealing its potential for detailed local conductivity characterization.

Contribution

The paper introduces TUNA as a novel technique for detecting ultra-low currents and mapping conductive pathways in CNF/epoxy nanocomposites without additional surface modifications.

Findings

TUNA effectively detects ultra-low electrical currents in nanocomposites.

Conductive pathways can be identified without traditional surface treatments.

TUNA provides detailed local topography and electrical property correlation.

Abstract

Epoxy nanocomposites able to meet pressing industrial requirements in the field of structural material have been developed and characterized. Tunneling Atomic Force Microscopy (TUNA), which is able to detect ultra-low currents ranging from 80 fA to 120 pA, was used to correlate the local topography with electrical properties of tetraglycidyl methylene dianiline (TGMDA) epoxy nanocomposites at low concentration of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) ranging from 0.05% up to 2% by wt. The results show the unique capability of TUNA technique in identifying conductive pathways in CNF/resins even without modifying the morphology with usual treatments employed to create electrical contacts to the ground.