Electrophoretic deposition of carbon nanotubes on semi-conducting and non-conducting substrates

Abstract

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is useful for conductive substrates, where a requisite electrical path can be formed. In order to make EPD more broadly applicable for semi-/non-conducting substrates, e.g. EPD of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on silicon and rubber, we proposed and demonstrated a simple modified EPD set-up. The substrate was directly attached to a conductive electrode at the top end, while a porous separator was placed between the lower parts of the substrate and the electrode which submerged in the CNTs suspension. The separator allowed the suspension moving through its micro-pores to reach the steel to form the requisite conductive path but hindered most CNTs from moving and attaching to the steel. Therefore, CNTs were successfully deposited on the semi-/non- conducting silicon/rubber in a simple single-step process by using the modified EPD set-up. We believe this EPD set-up can be applied to the deposition of versatile particles on various semi-/non-conducting substrates.