Study of single-walled carbon nanotube dielectrophoresis

Dielectrophoresis was used to align single-walled carbon nanotubes between microelectrodes in deionized water. The influences of solvent concentration, alternating current voltage amplitude and frequency, and direct current electric field on the alignment of nanotube were studied. The results show that the number of deposited carbon nanotubes could be adjusted via the solution concentration and voltage amplitude. Alternating current frequency affects the orientation of the nanotubes. At higher frequency, nanotubes are well assembled between the electrodes. When applying a composite electric field, the direct current component would generate vortex flux at the vicinity of nanotubes, which changes the nanotube alignment.