OREANDA-NEWS. Scientists from the Centre for Photonics and quantum materials of SKOLKOVO Institute of science and technology (Skoltech) have developed a new method for setting the optoelectric characteristics of single-walled carbon nanotubes films which are a base element of flexible and transparent electronics. These results extend the possibilities for application of such nanotubes in optoelectronics, said Wednesday in a press-service of the Institute.

Since the discovery of carbon nanotubes in 1991, scientists believed that they have a great future in modern industry. They have many useful properties – they conduct heat and current, high durability and mechanical resistance. But the first experiments have shown that nanotubes are very difficult to use in practice due to their small size and difficulties in their connection and interweaving into a single fiber.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (swcnt) is a promising material for flexible and transparent electronics. Compared to traditional industry materials, such as indium oxide doped with tin, or zinc oxide doped with aluminum, SWNT is more flexible and stretchable, and they initially have the conductivity of p-type (the charge carriers are not electrons and holes), making them one of the best candidates for future electronics.

The main obstacle to the widespread use of swcnt in the industry – the difficulty to control their electronic characteristics, which is often necessary, especially in optoelectronics, where you need to control conductivity and the Fermi level position is an important characteristics of the state of electrons. Carbon nanotubes usually are added – making them the admixture of another substance.