Flash dry deposition of nanoscale material thin films

In this work, we report a simple and scalable solution-based method to deposit nanoscale material thin films. We have demonstrated uniform thin films fabricated by a flash dry deposition method, including carbon nanotubes and polyaniline nanofibers. The films are electrically uniform across an entire area of 8 inches by 8 inches in size. This method can be applied to other nanoscale materials and substrates or nanomaterial multilayer structures if the correct solution–substrate interface interaction is achieved. In the end, we use this method to deposit CNT thin films on an unusual substrate—the inner side of thin glass tubing. Such transparent and conductive coating in glass tubing is not possible with traditional indium tin oxide sputtering and allows for a novel design of electrowetting devices.

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