Facile construction of electrically-conductive carbon patterns from a cheap coal-type pitch and their application to electric heating devices

Abstract

Electrically-conductive carbon patterns (ECPs) from cheap pitch thin films were fabricated using a simple proton beam lithography and pyrolysis. Well-defined negative-type pitch patterns were formed at the optimized fluence of 3×1015ionscm−2, and then pyrolyzed at various temperatures to create ECPs. The precursory pitch patterns formed at the optimized conditions were successfully temperature-dependently converted to the ECPs by pyrolysis. The formed ECPs through pyrolysis at a higher temperature exhibited good electrical conductivity. Moreover, the ECPs exhibited good electric heating characteristics, demonstrating the possibility of using the ECPs as a cheap electric heating element.