The present invention relates in general to carbon nanotubes, and in particular, to the utilization of carbon nanotube in field emission applications.
Carbon nanotubes have been used by many for field emission applications. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) come in two families, single wall nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-wall nanotubes (MWNTs). Both materials are long (11-10,000 microns) and thin (0.001-0.1 microns in diameter). This high aspect ratio and the fact that they are semiconducting or metallic makes them ideal candidates for field emission applications. One problem, however, is if the CNTs are too densely packed, the CNTs shield each other from the strong electrical fields needed to extract the electrons from the material. The field emission from these materials is further improved if the CNT fibers are aligned in parallel to the applied electrical field. Also desired is an inexpensive way of applying the CNT material onto suitable substrate materials at low temperature and aligning these materials using methods that are suitable for large-scale manufacturing.
By growing CNTs directly on a catalyst, some success has been achieved in growing the CNT materials with acceptable density and alignment, but not always in a predictable fashion. Furthermore, the growth temperatures are high, too high for using low-temperature sodalime glass that is commonly used in the display industry.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention, and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth such as specific cathode configurations to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without such specific details. In other instances, well-known circuits have been shown in block diagram form in order not to obscure the present invention in unnecessary detail. For the most part, details concerning timing considerations and the like have been omitted in as much as such details are not necessary to obtain a complete understanding of the present invention and are within the skills of persons of ordinary skill in the relevant art.
Refer now to the drawings wherein depicted elements are not necessarily shown to scale and wherein like or similar elements are designated by the same reference numeral through the several views.
The present invention provides a method of applying CNT materials onto almost any substrate material and activating for field emission the CNT fibers in a reproducible and inexpensive manner.
The source of carbon nanotube powders can be purified single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) powders from Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc. (Part #HPR92 S13). These SWNTs were 1 nm in diameter and 100˜1000 nm in length. But, any other kinds of single wall or multiwall carbon nanotubes can also be used in this method. There is no need to purify the CNT materials to eliminate the catalyst from the carbon.
One method is to grind the CNT materials into shorter lengths. This allows better control of material properties. In some cases, satisfactory results may be achieved without grinding. A typical ball mill was used to grind CNT bundles.
Other solvents can be used instead of IPA (e.g., acetone). Mixtures of solvents can also be used. Water or mixtures of water and solvent may also be used. IPA is inexpensive, is not extremely hazardous or toxic, and can be dried at relatively low temperatures.
Because the CNTs can easily agglomerate (stick to each other), an ultrasonic mixing process was applied to the CNT solution to disperse the CNTs again before spraying them onto the substrates. An ultrasonator made by (Sonics and Materials Inc., Danbury, Conn.) was used to further disperse the carbon nanotubes. Full power for 3-5 minutes, until the IPA starts to warm to about 40 C. Other means of applying ultrasonic energy to the solution may also be tried.
Next, the process involves a spraying of the CNT mixture onto the substrate. In this method, the CNT mixture can be sprayed on various kinds of substrates such as metal, ceramic, glass, plastics, organic and semiconductors. The substrates can be coated with conducting, insulating or semiconducting patterned layers to provide electrical conductivity to some areas and electrical isolation or selected electrical resistance to other areas. These layers can be deposited using printing methods (thick film) or by evaporation, sputtering or other thin film methods. Standard photolithography patterning and/or etching processes may be needed for additional patterning of the added layers.
Referring to
Ink jet printing or other printing techniques (or any other deposition process) may also be used to apply the CNT mixture to the substrate. Ink jet processes have advantages in a large scale manufacturing environment.
After the CNTs are sprayed on the substrate, a taping process may be used to remove some of the CNTs from the surface. In this method, 3M Scotch tape may be used to remove CNTs from the surface. But, many other varieties of tape can be used in this process. The tape is adhered on the CNT coating. It is important to be sure that there is no air between the tape and the CNT coating. If air exists between them, the CNTs at that area will not be removed. A rubber roller can be used to further press the tape in order to eliminate air gaps in the interface. Finally, the tape is removed by pulling up at one end. A very thin CNT layer is left on the substrate.
A field emission image of a sample cold cathode created by this process is shown in
The technique of mixing carbon nanotubes with host materials such as adhesives of all kind is known (sometime this is called “carbon nanotubes in a paste”). This paste is generally printed (for example, screen printed) on a substrate to define localized emission spots. In these emission spots, carbon nanotubes are homogeneously mixed with the paste. In the virgin situation after printing, the carbon nanotubes possess a random orientation on the paste, meaning that a large part of the nanotubes are oriented at different angles with respect to the vertical of the substrate, but also many other carbon nanotubes are distributed similarly around a line parallel to the substrate. As a result, the contribution to field emission of these carbon nanotubes that are not oriented vertically with respect to the substrate is minimal or null. Furthermore, the existence of a high concentration of carbon fibers in the material and the random orientation can create non-optimized electric field distribution in the paste including the carbon nanotubes and as a result shielding effects between neighboring nanotubes.
It is desirable to have a process whereby one can re-align these nanotubes, mechanically or otherwise, and also would be very important to lower in some cases the density of the carbon nanotubes in order to lower the shielding effect in an active device. This process can be implemented utilizing existing soft adhesives in the sense that a sustaining substrate that is coated with these soft adhesives can be applied to the surface of the printed paste including carbon nanotubes such that in a pulling process using the above soft adhesives, one can exercise suitable force on the carbon nanotubes to achieve the following results:
Excellent emission results can be obtained utilizing this technology.
In
An alternative process is the utilization of single wall or multi-wall or a mixture of single wall and multi-wall carbon nanotubes in IPA (alcohol or other solvent) host. Furthermore, in order to homogenize the solution of carbon nanotubes and IPA, certain chemicals are added to the mixture in order to diminish the surface forces between the carbon nanotubes and obtain isolated carbon nanotubes in a homogeneous mixture with the IPA with minimal bundles (aggregates or clusters of carbon nanotubes all together).
An advantage of this method is that by obtaining this homogeneous mixture, a spraying process can be utilized through a mechanical or other kind of mask such that spraying this mixture directly onto the active substrate through the mask will localize the carbon nanotubes on the future emission sites, and the fixation of these carbon nanotubes will be achieved by spraying onto the substrate where the substrate temperature is 50-100 degrees C.
Furthermore, after the fixation of the carbon nanotubes on the desired emissive locations, the same pulling technique can be used, but this time the pulling forces will be exercised more uniformly on all the carbon nanotubes that are exposed in the first layers on the sprayed material. As a result the aligning process and the decrease in the density of the carbon nanotubes is more efficient, more effective and more controllable.
Referring to
A representative hardware environment for practicing the present invention is depicted in
Either utilizing CVD to grow nanotubes or spraying or mixing nanotubes into a paste, then applying to a substrate for electron field emissions, it appears that electron emission current is strongly related to carbon nanotube density when applied onto substrates. It has been found that by activating the surface (e.g., by using adhesive tape to remove some carbon nanotube material) better electron emission characteristics can be achieved. For example, four samples of spray and paste carbon nanotubes on silicon wafers were made, one of the wafers activated from each group and one wafer kept as control. These were then inspected and nanotubes counted per square area from high power SEM pictures.
Referring to
The present application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/269,577, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,195,938, which claims priority to the following U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. Nos. 60/343,642, 60/348,856, and 60/369,794.
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