Ink Jet Printing of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Film Integrated Circuits

The goal of the proposed work is to evaluate the viability of printing integrated circuits using Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs) as the base material. Commercially, the impact of advanced printing electronics technology is significant. These technologies have the potential to reduce manufacturing costs and ultimately lead to an industry- wide improvement in manufacturing time efficiency. In this work, we plan to isolate semiconducting SWNTs using the density gradient method, and then functionalize them to be used as p- and n- type channels for ink-jet printed TFTs. In collaboration with Foster Miller and BAE systems, we will ink-jet print the SWNT solutions made at NanoTechLabs including metallic interconnects using both metallic SWNTs and small diameter metallic MWNTs. The end goal of this work is to create viable semiconducting and metallic nanotube inks along with a compatible polymeric solution which can be used to print the needed components for a nanotube-based logic circuit.