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A Unified View on Nanoscale Packing, Connectivity, and Conductivity of CNT Networks
Author(s) -
Gnanasekaran Karthikeyan,
Grimaldi Claudio,
With Gijsbertus,
Friedrich Heiner
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201807901
Subject(s) - materials science , nanoscopic scale , carbon nanotube , dispersity , nanotechnology , conductivity , electrical conductor , particle (ecology) , aspect ratio (aeronautics) , characterization (materials science) , topology (electrical circuits) , composite material , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , combinatorics , geology , polymer chemistry , oceanography
The design of functional structures from primary building blocks requires a thorough understanding of how size, shape, and particle–particle interactions steer the assembly process. Specifically, for electrically conductive networks build from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) combining macroscopic characterization and simulations shows that the achievable conductivity is mainly governed by CNT aspect ratio, length dispersity and attractive interactions. However, a direct link between the actual 3D network topology that leads to the observed electrical conductivity has not been established yet due to a lack in nanoscale experimental approaches. Here it is shown experimentally for randomly packed (jammed) CNT networks that the CNT aspect ratio determines, as theoretically predicted, the contact number per CNT which in turn scales linearly with the resulting electrical conductivity of the CNT network. Furthermore, nanoscale packing density, contact areas, contact distribution in random and nonrandom configurations, and least resistance pathways are quantified. The results illustrate how complex nanoscale networks can be imaged and quantified in 3D to understand and model their functional properties in a bottom‐up fashion.