Directional sensing based on flexible aligned carbon nanotube film nanocomposites

Chao Sui; Yingchao Yang; Robert J. Headrick; Zixuan Pan; Jianyang Wu; Jing Zhang; Shuai Jia; Xinwei Li; Weilu Gao; Oliver S. Dewey; Chao Wang; Xiaodong He; Junichiro Kono; Matteo Pasquali; Jun Lou

doi:10.1039/C8NR02137F

Directional sensing based on flexible aligned carbon nanotube film nanocomposites†

Chao Sui,‡^ab Yingchao Yang,‡^c Robert J. Headrick,‡^d Zixuan Pan,^a Jianyang Wu,

^e Jing Zhang,^a Shuai Jia,^a Xinwei Li,^f Weilu Gao,

^f Oliver S. Dewey,

^h Chao Wang,

*^ab Xiaodong He,^b Junichiro Kono,

^afg Matteo Pasquali

^dh and Jun Lou

*^ad

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA
E-mail: chaowang@hit.edu.cn, jlou@rice.edu

^b National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China

^c Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maine, 5711 Boardman Hall, Orono, ME 04469, USA

^d Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA

^e Department of Physics, Research Institute for Biomimetics and Soft Matter, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory for Soft Functional Materials Research, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China

^f Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, USA

^g Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, USA

^h Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA

Abstract

The electrical behaviors under mechanical deformation of an aligned single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film nanocomposite have been systematically investigated in this work. Electrical signals along the CNT axis (‖) and perpendicular to the CNT axis (⊥) follow a specific pattern, which enables the mechanical motion to be determined by vector analysis of such signals. The unique electrical behaviors of the sandwiched nanocomposites originate from the anisotropic characteristics of the CNT films. By combining in situ mechanical investigation with a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation, the shearing effect between SWCNTs is found to play a key role in stress-transfer along the ‖ direction, resulting in arc-shape cracks, while the peeling effect is dominant along the ⊥ direction, leading to unifom SWCNT bar bridging at cracks. The fabricated CNT based sandwiched nanocomposite is believed to have great potential in building flexible all-direction sensors.

Nanoscale

Directional sensing based on flexible aligned carbon nanotube film nanocomposites†

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