Continuous, Ultra-Lightweight, and Multi-Purpose Super-Aligned Carbon Nanotube Tapes Viable over a Wide Range of Temperatures

In extreme environments, such as at ultra-high or ultra-low temperatures, the amount of tape used should be minimal so as to reduce system contamination and unwanted residues. However, tapes made from conventional materials typically lose their adhesiveness or leave residues difficult to remove under such conditions. Thus, the development of more versatile, lightweight, and easily-removable tapes for applications in such extreme environments has received considerable attention. Here we report that horizontally super-aligned carbon nanotube (SACNT) tapes can be used to provide perfect van der Waals (vdW) interface contacts over a wide range of temperatures (from -196 ○C to 1000 ○C), yielding outstanding adhesiveness with specific adhesion strengths up to ~1.1 N/µg. With a surface density of only 0.5–5 µg/cm2, hundreds of times lighter than the vertically-aligned CNT adhesives, the SACNT tapes can be cost-effectively provided in hundreds of meters. They have multi-purpose adhesive abilities for versatile ma...