Influence of Capillary Effects on Electric Response of Well-Ordered Carbon Nanotube Film.

The interface structure in nanocomposite materials often directly influences the electric, thermal, and mechanical properties of functional architectures and limits their application in many fields, in addition to the characteristics of their nanobuilding blocks. In this work, we report that the electronic transport characteristic of a well-ordered carbon nanotube film is adjusted by the structural evolution of the junction caused by capillary effects. This mechanism can explain the resistance change and recovery throughout the immersion-evaporation process and even the anomalous transient decrease in the resistance. Meanwhile, we establish a relationship between the resistance change ratio of the film and the interfacial tension between the film and the immersion liquid. The ability to achieve a sensitive and repeatable resistance change in a carbon nanotube film could have important implications in the measurement of liquid properties, liquid sensors, and solution analysis and provide a new avenue for the development of new multifunctional architectures.