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(Invited) Air-Stability Mechanism of n-Type Single-Walledcarbon Nanotube Sheet Doped with Benzimidazole Derivative

Monday, 14 May 2018: 11:20
Room 201 (Washington State Convention Center)
T. Fujigaya (PRESTO-JST), A. Staykov (WPI-I2CNER, Kyushu University), W. Huang (Kyushu University), and Y. Nakashima (Kyushu University, Japan)
Thermoelectric (TE) conversion is one of the most promising methods for the generation of cost-effective electricity. TE devices have applications in many fields especially microelectronics devices due to their simple device structures. TE generation using Seebeck effect requires both n-type and p-type TE materials for the efficient conversion; however, deterioration of n-type nature due to air oxidation has been the critical issue. Recently, we reported single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) sheet doped by 2-(2-methoxyphenyl)-1,3-dimethyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzimidazole (o-MeO-DMBI) showed n-type property and remarkable air-stability. We chose o-MeO-DMBI because of the following reasons; i) o-MeO-DMBI is stable under atmospheric conditions, ii) the cationic form of o-MeO-DMBI is also stable and, iii) n-doping of the other carbon materials such as fullerene and graphene has already been reported. Here, we study the mechanism of the air stability of o-MeO-DMBI-doped SWCNT films by changing the doping level. eDIPS (Meijo Nano Carbon, EC1.5) was used as SWCNT. SWCNT films were dipped in the 0.01, 0.1, 1.0, 10 and 50 mM ethanol solutions of o-MeO-DMBI for 10 min and dried in vacuum at room temperature for 12 h. The time course of Seebeck coefficient of the SWCNT films doped with various concentration of o-MeO-DMBI solution was studied. It is noted that the films were kept under air condition at room temperature to evaluate the air stability of the o-MeO-DMBI-doped SWCNT films. Positive value of Seebeck coefficient for 0.01 and 0.1 mM doped films indicated p-type, and negative value for 1.0, 10 and 50 mM doped films showed n-type nature of the films. Interestingly, we found that Seebeck coefficient of 1.0 mM doped film changed to positive, while 10 mM doped film showed stable negative value. From above results, we conclude that the mechanism of the air-stabilization of n-doping is the passivation effect by the formation of o-MeO-DMBI layer onto the surface of SWCNT films