Photophoretic deposition and separation of aerosol-synthesized single-walled carbon nanotubes

We report a novel, dry, and clean method to directly deposit single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) onto a desired substrate with the photophoresis phenomenon. We demonstrate the photophoresis method to be convenient and reproducible to deposit low-bundled nanotubes to form either non-percolating or continuous networks with controlled SWCNT density and surface distribution. Employing the structure-dependent optical features of the nanotubes, we show the correlation between the light source spectrum and the configuration of the deposited SWCNTs due to the selective light interaction with SWCNTs of certain chiralities. Thus, photo-phoretic deposition is a promising method for the fabrication of various advanced devices, such as electrically driven single-photon emitters or field-effect transistors from semiconducting SWCNTs with a desired electronic structure.