SUMMARY

Carbon nanotube (CNT) forests possess unique properties (e.g., high thermal and electrical conductivity, optical absorption, and mechanical compliance), which have rendered them as excellent candidates for applications such as field emitters, thermal and electrical interfaces, super dark absorbers, and through wafer interconnects. In this work, the relation between morphological differences between carbon nanotube (CNT) forests and their mechanical behavior is investigated. The micro-compression response of the CNT forests is studied for the case of different growth induced morphological gradients along the height of the CNT forests and for the case of tailored mechanical constraints using coating and wetting of the CNTs. The morphological gradients (e.g. density and entanglement) are quantified for CNT forests grown with three different recipes. Also, two methods of coating, a tip coating and a conformal coating are employed to change the mechanical constraints. This study elucidates the major reasons for the different mechanical behavior of the CNT forests which governs their performance in many applications.