Effective doping of single-walled carbon nanotube films with bromine under ultrasound

Carbon nanomaterials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted considerable interest from the scientific community over the past decades. Due to the extraordinary properties they are envisioned to play a key role in a wide spectrum of applications in the upcoming future. An interesting property of carbon nanostructures is the sensitivity of their electronic properties to a range of chemical stimuli. Consequently, their capabilities for charge propagation may be significantly enhanced upon appropriate combination with a chemical compound, which can affect the Fermi level of the material. In this work, the impact of addition of bromine to single-walled CNT (SWCNT) films on their electrical and thermoelectric properties was investigated. The experimental results revealed that thermoelectric capabilities of the material may be enhanced by two orders of magnitude by sonication-assisted introduction of Br2 into a SWCNT network. Conducted computations unravelled how the dopant affects the electronic properties of the SWCNT host and its charge transport properties. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Carbon nanomaterials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes have attracted significant interest due to their extraordinary properties, with the potential to play a key role in future applications. The sensitivity of carbon nanostructures to chemical stimuli allows for enhanced charge propagation capabilities, as seen in the impact of bromine addition on the electrical and thermoelectric properties of single-walled carbon nanotube films. Experimental results show a two orders of magnitude enhancement in thermoelectric capabilities through sonication-assisted introduction of Br2 into the SWCNT network, with computational analyses revealing the dopant's influence on electronic and charge transport properties.