Ultrathin transparent conductive films of polymer-modified multiwalled carbon nanotubes

Deposition of multiwalled carbon nanotubes modified by poly(2-vinylpyridine) (CNT-g-P2VP) from aqueous dispersions at low pH is an effective method to prepare homogeneous ultrathin films with a tunable CNTs density. A percolation threshold of 0.25 μg/cm² and a critical exponent a = 1.24 have been found from dc conductivity measurements. The sheet resistance value agrees with the percolation theory for 2D films. According to AFM and electrical measurements, even when only 5% of the surface is covered by CNT-gP2VPs, the sheet resistance is of the order of 1 MΩ/sq, which indicates that conductivity is imparted by a network of an ultralow density. When the film transmittance decreases down to ∼70% at 550 nm, the occupied surface area is ∼15% and sheet resistance falls down to ∼90 kΩ/sq. These data show that undesired in-plane clustering does not occur upon the dispersion casting of the films and that high-quality networks of CNT-g-P2VPs are built up. The electrosteric stabilization of the CNT-g-P2VP dispersions in water at low pH is at the origin of this desired behavior. Although the multiwalled CNT films prepared in this work are less conductive and less transparent than the SWNTs films, they could find applications, e.g., in touch screens, reflective displays, EMI shielding, and static charge dissipation.