Direct Synthesis of Semiconducting Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes Toward High‐Performance Electronics

Abstract

Abstract The large‐scale synthesis of high‐purity semiconducting single‐walled carbon nanotubes (s‐SWCNTs) plays a crucial role in fabricating high‐performance and multiapplication‐scenario electronics. This work develops a straightforward, continuous, and scalable method to synthesize high‐purity and individual s‐SWCNTs with small‐diameters distribution (≈1 nm). It is believed that the water and carbon dioxide resulting from the decomposition of isopropanol act as oxidizing agents and selectively etch metallic SWCNTs, hence enhancing the production of s‐SWCNTs. The performance of individual‐SWCNTs field effect transistors confirms the high abundance of s‐SWCNTs, presenting a mean mobility of 376 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a high mobility of 2725 cm2 V−1 s−1 with an on‐current to off‐current (Ion/Ioff) ratio as high as 2.51 × 107. Moreover, thin‐film transistors based on the as‐synthesized SWCNTs exhibit excellent performance with a mean mobility of 9.3 cm2 V−1 s−1 and Ion/Ioff ratio of 1.3× 105, respectively, verifying the enrichment of s‐SWCNTs. This work presents a simple and feasible route for the sustainable synthesis of high‐quality s‐SWCNTs for electronic devices.

Keywords

• gas‐phase synthesis
• isopropanol
• reproducibility
• semiconducting single‐walled carbon nanotubes
• transistors