Facile construction of electrically-conductive carbon patterns from a cheap coal-type pitch and their application to electric heating devices

Electrically-conductive carbon patterns (ECPs) from cheap pitch thin films were fabricated using a simple proton beam lithography and pyrolysis. Well-defined negative-type pitch patterns were formed at the optimized fluence of 3 x 10(15) ions cm(-2), and then pyrolyzed at various temperatures to create ECPs. The precursory pitch patterns formed at the optimized conditions were successfully temperature dependently converted to the ECPs by pyrolysis. The formed ECPs through pyrolysis at a higher temperature exhibited good electrical conductivity. Moreover, the ECPs exhibited good electric heating characteristics, demonstrating the possibility of using the ECPs as a cheap electric heating element. (C) 2016 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.