Transparent and conductive Ti3C2Tx (MXene) thin film fabrication by electrohydrodynamic atomization technique

In this work conducting thin films have been fabricated from two-dimensional Ti3C2Tx (MXene) using cheap and vacuum free solution processible electrohydrodynamic atomization technique, for the first time. Delaminated Ti3C2Tx dispersed in ethanol has been processed and optimized deposition parameters have been achieved to deposit Ti3C2Tx thin film, directly. Three films of Ti3C2Tx with different thickness (135, 248 and 337 nm) based on deposition time i.e. 20 min (S1), 40 min (S2) and 60 min (S3) were fabricated on glass substrate, respectively. After which, films were annealed at 400 A degrees C for 2 h in an inert environment. Films were fully characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis-NIR, X-Ray Diffraction and the Zahner XPOT. Resistivity of S1, S2 and S3 were calculated to be 3.4 x 10(-4) abroken vertical bar-cm, 130 x 10(-4) abroken vertical bar-cm and 210 x 10(-4) abroken vertical bar-cm respectively similar to 86.7 % transmittance has obtained for S1 at 550 nm. For investigating electrode performance for Ti3C2Tx, films are applied as top electrode in diode (FTO/TiO2/Ti3C2Tx). It has been observed that S1 has shown the best diode behavior with 120 mA at 3 V. Therefore, we claim that two dimensional Ti3C2Tx MXene thin films have great potential to be further investigated for utilizing in photo-electronics, energy storage devices and sensing applications.