Finite Element Model of a Bilayered Gold-Coated Carbon Nanotube Composite Surface

Vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), with a gold (Au)-coated surface, have been shown to provide a stable contact resistance for electrical contact switching applications under low force conditions (micronewton to millinewton), with the MWCNT surface providing a compliant support for the conducting Au layer. In this paper, nanoindentation results are used in the development of a finite element contact model for the composite, referred to as Au/CNT. The results show that the surface is best modeled as a bilayered structure, in which the top layer is modeled as an elastic-plastic layer of the Au/CNT mixed material and the under layer as a CNT forest. The resultant model matches the experimental results for a range of samples with different thickness configurations.