Carbon nanotube–metal nano-laminate for enhanced mechanical strength and electrical conductivity

There have been extensive efforts to improve the properties of conventional metals such as electrical conductivity and rigidity. Here, we report a massive fabrication strategy for metal–carbon nanotube (CNT) laminate-based electrodes. In this method, CNTs were assembled by directed assembly strategy and a thin metal layer was formed by electrodeposition process, and those processes were repeated several times to fabricate multilayered structures. We demonstrated that metal–CNT laminates showed 42% enhancement in the conductivity compared to electrodeposited metals. Furthermore, its Young’s modulus was found to be 88% higher than pure bulk metals. Interestingly, the fabricated structures show I–V characteristics of metal wires while exhibiting typical noise characteristics of CNTs. Since our method uses only conventional microfabrication facilities, it can be readily used by the present microfabrication industry.