Simultaneously grown single wall carbon nanotube channel and electrodes in a thin film transistor

By chemical vapor deposition, aligned single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and a network of SWNTs are simultaneously grown as the channel and the source-drain electrodes of thin film transistors (TFTs). The increase of aligned SWNTs increases the channel conductance without changing the contact resistance. However, the increase of network-type SWNTs from 19 to 32.5 (SWNTs/mu m) decreases the contact resistance fivefold. The contact resistance of all-SWNT TFT is three times lower compared with that of an SWNT TFT using metal electrodes. The all-SWNT TFTs transferred on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) show a transparency of >80% in the visible range of wavelengths.