CARBON NANOTUBE APPLICATIONS IN ENGG

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOTUBES APPLICATIONS CONCLUSION REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
A carbon nanotube is a sheet of carbon atoms joined in a pattern of hexagons and rolled into cylinder. They are several micrometers in length and a few nanometers in diameter, resulting in a larger length-todiameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1. Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes the spherical buckyballs. The ends of a nanotube might be open or capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure.
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TYPES OF CNTs

Figure 1: (a) Armchair,(b) zigzag, and (c) chiral shaped single Figure 2: Multi-wall carbon nanotubes

PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOTUBES

Properties
Typical diameter Typical length Resistivity at 300k

Numerical values
1-2nm 100-1000nm 10-4-10-3 cm(metallic) 10 cm (semiconductor)

Current density Thermal conductivity at 300k Thermal stability

107-108A cm-2 20-300Wm-1K-1 2800 C (vacuum )

750 C (air)
Elastic modulus 1000-3000GPa, harder
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than steel Table 1: Properties of carbon nanotubes

APPLICATIONS
PLANAR MICRO SUPERCAPACITOR

A supercapacitor is a charge storage device composed of

two electrodes with electrolyte in between. 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazoliumtetrafluoro-borate

([BMIM] [BF4]) with its high breakdown voltage

of 3V was used as the electrolyte PDMS cap limit the flow of electrolyte within a fixed 5mmx7mm CNT region.
Figure 3: Schematic of planar micro supercapacitor using aligned, 3D 6 CNT forest electrode

 PRINCIPAL OF PLANAR MICRO SUPERCAPACITOR

under a biased voltage, the positive and negative ions in electrolyte will separate, migrate and accumulate around the electrode surface, forming a nm-thin layer called electro-chemical double layer (EDL) which

enhances the capacitance.

Moreover the porous electrodes maximize the EDL

phenomenon and give supercapacitors an astonishingly high value of specific capacitance
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ADVANTAGES OF PLANAR MICRO SUPERCAPACITOR

The demonstration of the capability of "planar" structure for supercapacitors could inspire new architecture in circuit. CNT-covered supercapacitor has generated a specific capacitance of 428gf/cm2, three orders higher than those merely using metal electrodes.

The samples show an excellent charge efficiency of

92% and a robust cycling stability.
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ELECTRONIC APPLICATIONS
Due to the miniaturization of the computers, there is an

increasing demand in increasing the number of switches in a

chip. The metal wires with small diameter are used to do the interconnections between the computer and switches. A decrease in the diameter of a wire in turn increases the

resistance and hence, the wire generates heat due to the flow
of current. CNT have smaller dimensions and low resistivity.
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ELECTRONIC APPLICATIONS (contd)

Field effect transistor

Figure 4: a) CNT based field effect transistor

(b) Charactericstics

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ELECTRONIC APPLICATIONS (contd)

CNT switches
Parallel carbon nanotube are placed on silicon substrate .

The top array and the bottom array are perpendicular to

each other and are not in contact . The crossing point represents switches . It is controlled by

passing current through

the tubes.
Figure 5: CNT switch arrays on a silicon substrate
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ULTRA SMALL SINGLE WALLED CARBON NANOTUBE PRESSURE SENSORS

The SWNT strain gauges are embedded between double

layer membrane of 70nm SiO2 and 70nm of Al203

These oxide layers are used to protect it from the environment. The SWNT is contacted in the form of FET The change in the resistance is used to measure the pressure These are more sensitive and more efficient
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CONCLUSION
The applications of CNT ensure a bright future for

these materials.
Attractive characteristics of CNTs have made researcher to fabricate products using CNT. Nanotubes are very user-friendly, very robust, they can also act as excellent model systems for learning manipulation at a nanometer scale.
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REFERENCES
1. S.P.Basavaraju, A Text Book of Engineering Physics , 2010, 554-561 2. M. R. Srinivasan, New Age International Publishers , Physics for Engineers, 714-721 3. V. Rajendran, Tata Mcgraw-Hill , Engineering Physics , 2009,27.22-27.31 4.YQ. Jiang, Q. Zhou, and L. Lin , PLANAR MEMS SUPERCAPACITOR USINGCARBON NANOTUBE FORESTS, IEEE paper. 5.T Helbling, S. Drittenbass, L. Durrer, C. Roman, C. Hierold, ULTRA SMALL SINGLE WALLED CARBON NANOTUBE PRESSURE SENSORS Micro and Nanosystems, IEEE paper.
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THANK YOU!

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