TAILORING THE ELECTRICAL AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOTUBE REINFORCED TRANSPARENT TiO2 COMPOSITES BY VARYING NANOTUBE CONCENTRATIONS

Abstract

In the present work, multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-doped TiO2 nanocomposite films were synthesized by sol-gel method. The influence of nanotube concentration on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the films was investigated. The beneficial effects of the addition of carbon nanotubes into a TiO2 film and titania-coated MWCNTs have much in common. On the other hand, this work contributes to the previous studies in terms of the optical and electrical properties of MWCNT. For this reason, MWCNT/rare brookite-phased TiO2 matrix as simple sol-gel deposited composite films were investigated in our study. The XRD studies showed that the composite film has a brookite crystal structure at the annealing temperature of 450 degrees C. According to the surface morphology investigations, SEM image of nanocomposite film shows that composite film has a granular and rod-like structure. The absorbance measurements of the films were carried out by the UV-Vis spectrophotometer to investigate transparency and to calculate the bandgap energy of composite films. The surface resistivity of the MWCNT-doped TiO2 composites decreased from 2.50 x 10(10)( )to 2.20 x 10(9) ohm/sq with increase in MWCNT content.