Electrophoretic Deposition of Carbon Nanotubes into Device Structures: An Approach to Integrate Nanostructures into Micro devices

ABSTRACTCharged particles in suspension tend to move when an electric field is applied. This simple phenomenon of migration of charged particles in a liquid medium and their subsequent deposition onto an oppositely charged electrode is called electrophoretic deposition (EPD), and is used in assembly of nanoparticles into microfabricated devices. This work reports the application of the EPD process for deposition of commercially available purified single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) onto microfabricated device structures. A direct current EPD in aqueous medium was used to position CNTs into two different microfabricated device structures: gold electrodes of 100nm thickness and gold microcantilevers. Control of the mass of CNTs deposited using EPD process is addressed in this work.