Conjugated polymer sorting of semiconducting carbon nanotubes and their electronic applications

In the past decade, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have aroused great interest for electronic applications due to their extraordinary charge carrier mobility, mechanical flexibility, and solution processability. However, one of the key issues preventing the wide application of SWNTs in electronics is the need to separate semiconducting SWNTs from metallic SWNTs. Sorting semiconducting SWNTs using conjugated polymers is becoming a very promising SWNT sorting method due to its high-selectivity, high-yield and simplicity of execution. In this review, we summarized the parameters that can be used to tune the selectivity and sorting yield of semiconducting SWNTs, including polymer structure, solvent, polymer-to-SWNT ratio, sonication temperature and polymer molecular weight. We also reviewed the electronic applications enabled by these polymer-sorted semiconducting SWNTs inks such as transistors, logic gates, photodetectors, solar cells and 3D electronics. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.