{"title":"The Relationship between Contact Resistance and Contact Force on Au coated Carbon Nanotube surfaces","authors":"E. M. Yunus, J. McBride, S. Spearing","doi":"10.1109/HOLM.2007.4318212","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Carbon-nanotube (CNT) coated surfaces are investigated to determine the electrical contact performance under low force conditions. The surfaces under investigation are multi-walled CNTs formed on a silicon substrate and coated with an Au film. These planar surfaces are mated with a hemispherical Au plated probe mounted in a nano-indentation apparatus. The maximum contact force used is 1 mN. The contact resistance of these surfaces is investigated as a function of the applied force and is also studied under repeated loading cycles. The surfaces are compared with a reference Au-Au contact under the same experimental conditions and the results compared to established contact theory. The results show that the multi-walled CNT surface provides a stable contact resistance, but that the performance could be improved further with the application of single-walled CNT coatings. This initial study shows the potential for the application of CNT surfaces as an interface in low force electrical contact applications.","PeriodicalId":11624,"journal":{"name":"Electrical Contacts - 2007 Proceedings of the 53rd IEEE Holm Conference on Electrical Contacts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2007-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"25","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Electrical Contacts - 2007 Proceedings of the 53rd IEEE Holm Conference on Electrical Contacts","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1109/HOLM.2007.4318212","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 25
Abstract
Carbon-nanotube (CNT) coated surfaces are investigated to determine the electrical contact performance under low force conditions. The surfaces under investigation are multi-walled CNTs formed on a silicon substrate and coated with an Au film. These planar surfaces are mated with a hemispherical Au plated probe mounted in a nano-indentation apparatus. The maximum contact force used is 1 mN. The contact resistance of these surfaces is investigated as a function of the applied force and is also studied under repeated loading cycles. The surfaces are compared with a reference Au-Au contact under the same experimental conditions and the results compared to established contact theory. The results show that the multi-walled CNT surface provides a stable contact resistance, but that the performance could be improved further with the application of single-walled CNT coatings. This initial study shows the potential for the application of CNT surfaces as an interface in low force electrical contact applications.