Optical antenna arrays of carbon nanotubes and their fabrication on polyimide and transparent conducting oxides for direct device integration

Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes/nanofibers grown on various substrates by a direct-current plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method have been shown experimentally to function as classical low-loss dipole antenna arrays at optical frequencies. Two fundamental antenna effects, e.g., the polarization effect and length matching effect, directly observed on large-scale CNT arrays in visible frequency range, hold them promising for industry-level fabrication of devices including linear/beam-splitting polarizers, solar energy converters, THz demodulators, etc., some of which will, however, require or prefer a flexible and/or transparent conducting substrate to be compatible for multi-level integration and low-cost manufacturing process. A low-energy dark discharge fabrication technique is therefore devised which successfully yields CNT antennas directly on polyimide films and transparent conducting oxides (ITO, ZnO) with the absence of a buffer layer.