Dry-transferred single-walled carbon nanotube thin films for flexible and transparent heaters

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are considered to be ideal candidates for flexible and transparent heaters (THs). However, the conventional wet-fabrication of SWCNT thin films makes the performance of SWCNT THs fail to meet the expectation. Herein, we synthesized high-quality SWCNT thin films by floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD), allowing the dry and direct process of transferring films on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as THs. A pristine SWCNT TH with a transmittance of 73.5% displayed a reasonable heating performance, reaching the saturated temperatures of ∼53 and 85 °C at the driven voltages of 7 V and 12 V, respectively. Nevertheless, after doping the identical SWCNT film by AuCl₃, it rises to ∼70 and 139 °C at 7 V and 12 V, respectively. We held the point that the improved heating performance was mainly attributed to the reduced sheet resistance and film densification by AuCl₃ doping. We also found our SWCNT TH showed excellent thermal stability and mechanical flexibility. Due to the continuous synthesis and facile transfer of FCCVD, our SWCNT THs demonstrate potential applications in modern technologies, such as smart windows and defoggers.