During their synthesis, multi-walled carbon nanotubes can be aligned and impregnated in a polymer matrix to form an electrically conductive and flexible nanocomposite with high backing density. The material exhibits the highest reported electrical conductivity of CNT-epoxy composites (350 S/m). Here, we show how conductive atomic force microscopy can be used to study the electrical transport me...

Polymer nanocomposites with engineered electrical properties can be made by tuning the fabrication method, processing conditions and filler’s geometric and physical properties. This work focuses on investigating the effect of filler’s geometry (aspect ratio and shape), intrinsic electrical conductivity, alignment and dispersion within the polymer, and polymer crystallinity, on the percolation t...

Single crystals of three-dimensional (3D) C60 polymer were prepared by the topotactic conversion of two-dimensional (2D) C60 polymer single crystals at a pressure of 15 GPa at 600 degrees C. The x-ray single crystal study revealed that the 3D C60 polymer crystallized in a body centered orthorhombic space group Immm, and spherical C60 monomer units were substantially deformed to rectangular para...

In this work, we propose a comprehensive multi-scale three-dimensional (3D) resistor network numerical model to predict the piezoresistivity behavior of a nanocomposite material composed of an insulating polymer matrix and conductive carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This material is expected to be used as highly sensitive resistance-type strain sensors due to its high piezoresistivity defined as the re...

A novel and highly conductive 3-dimensional (3D) hierarchical multi-scale structure is formed by a new, simple, facile, and water-based method that enables practical production of conductive carbon nanofiller/polymer composites. More specifically, the π-π interaction between CNTs and graphene oxide (GO) is exploited to disperse conductive but non-polar CNTs with amphiphilic GO sheets to form a ...

Solid-electrolyte tantalum capacitors were first developed and commercially produced in the 1950s. They represented a quantum leap forward in miniaturization and reliability over existing wound-foil wet electrolytic capacitors. While the solid tantalum capacitor has dramatically improved electrical performance versus wet-electrolyte capacitors, especially at low temperatures, today’s electronic...

Conductive polymers are a new class of materials, which exhibit highly reversible redox behavior and unusual combination of properties of metals and plastics. The conductivity of a polymer can be increased several-fold by doping it with a suitable dopant. Doping plays a very important role to convert the polymer into conductive form. In this work an attempt has been made to synthesize polyanili...

Conductive films that are both stretchable and flexible could have applications in electronic devices, sensors, actuators and speakers. A substantial amount of research has been carried out on conductive polymer composites, metal electrode-integrated rubber substrates and materials based on carbon nanotubes and graphene. Here we present highly conductive, printable and stretchable hybrid compos...

Conductive polymers have been increasingly used as fuel cell catalyst support due to their electrical conductivity, large surface areas and stability. The incorporation of metal nanoparticles into a polymer matrix can effectively increase the specific surface area of these materials and hence improve the catalytic efficiency. In this work, a nanoparticle loaded conductive polymer nanocomposite ...