Mikhail E. Itkis
University of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0403, USA
Title: Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Films Optoelectronics
Biography
Biography: Mikhail E. Itkis
Abstract
Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are unique one-dimensional nanostructured materials, with outstanding optoelecronic properties, which can form two-dimensional possessing either metallic (MT) or semiconducting (SC) properties dependent on the SWNT chirality. MT-SWNTs thin films can be utilized as transparent conducting coating for large area touch screen displays, while the SC-SWNTs thin films can serve as active elements in logic circuits, photodetectors, solar cells and light emitting diodes. In this talk, a development of SWNT thin film applications in electrochromic cells and in UV and infrared photodetection will be discussed. Recently, we proposed a thin film of SC-SWNTs as a new electrochromic media and fabricated a nanotube thin film based electrochromic cell in which the active electrochromic layer is made of the film of SC-SWNTs and the counter-electrode is composed of the film of MT-SWNTs. With an ionic liquid utilized as an electrolyte, more than 100-fold increase of the operation speed (response time in millisecond range) was achieved as compared to traditional electrolyte based systems. In another development, SC-SWNT thin film and wide bandgap semiconductor were combined to manufacture a vertical heterojunction ultraviolet (UV) photodetector with SWNT film serving two functions at once: firstly, as a large area transparent conducting coating passing the UV light and collecting the photocurrent, and secondly, as a semiconducting layer forming heterojunction with wide bandgap semiconductor ZnO. Thus, multifunctionality of SWNT thin films allows them to become a platform for the development of a variety of optoelectronic applications.