Electrothermally bonded carbon nanotube interfaces

Applications that exploit the exceptional transport properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at practical length scales almost invariably require good contact of the CNTs with the contacting surface. For example, vertically aligned and dense arrays of carbon nanotubes have been demonstrated to be good thermal interface materials. However, interfacial resistance to thermal and electrical transport between CNTs and bulk substrates is found to adversely affect device performance in such applications. In this work, we present a method to attach CNTs to contacting surfaces with low-temperature electrostatic bonding, and the effects of bonding conditions are studied in terms of the resulting interface morphology, mechanical bond strength, and thermal conductance. We show that the bonding process results in thermal resistance reductions of as much as 64% compared to unbonded CNT joints. Optimization of such bonded interfaces can lead to utilization of CNT interfaces closer to their full potential.