Mechanical characterization of suspended strips of meshed single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

A thin film of single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) mesh has good potential to integrate the existing electromechanical functions with flexible devices. In this paper, SWCNT mats are transferred to a patterned polymer SU-8 substrate using a wet contact print method, forming a suspended bridge over a groove in the substrate. The front edge of a tipless AFM cantilever loads the suspension at the centerline, causing it to deform into a V-shape by mixed bending and stretching. The mechanical response of load versus AFM displacement is fitted to a linear elastic model to extract the average elastic modulus. Reversible loading-unloading shows little or no permanent damage due to mechanical loads.