High-temperature adsorption of nitrogen dioxide for stable, efficient, and scalable doping of carbon nanotubes

Abstract

This work is devoted to a novel efficient strategy for single-walled carbon nanotube doping employing heat treatment with nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Unlike numerous reports of unstable NO2 doping at room temperature, our method combines high efficiency and stability, enabled by its temperature-dependent adsorption on the nanotube surface. We reveal that doping stability increases with the treatment temperature reaching maxima at 300 °C avoiding any detrimental effect on nanotube structure and optical transmittance. As a result, we demonstrate doped carbon nanotube transparent conductive films exhibiting competitive performance (in respect to films treated with other dopants) with a less than 50% drop in conductive characteristics for over a year. Thermo-programmed desorption analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirm the preferential formation of long-living adsorbed nitrogen species, such as NO3-groups, as a result of high-temperature treatment. We believe the current work provides a basis for the robust and technologically efficient doping of single-walled carbon nanotubes and related structures at industrial scales, as the developed method could be easily coupled with a continuous technology of carbon nano materials production.