Carbon Nanotube Coatings’ Role in Transparency, Mechanical Hardness, and Wetting Angle Increase

Abstract

Among the different nanostructures involved in the improvement of material properties, carbon nanotubes occupy a specific place because of their small refractive index, extended surface, and large Young’s module, which can all provoke dramatic change in basic matrix material characteristics. Inorganic crystals, semiconductors, metals, conductive compounds, and some polymer structures whose surfaces are treated with carbon nanotubes demonstrate better features than the ones obtained before carbon nanotubes deposition. Thus, the areas of application for these unique nanostructure materials can be effectively extended, e.g., for optoelectronic use, in biomedicine, and display applications. In the current paper, the advantages of the laser-oriented deposition technique are shown in order to demonstrate how the main material parameters change drastically through the incorporation of carbon nanotubes.