Synthesis and Characterization of Carbon Nanotube–Polymer Multilayer Structures

We develop lightweight, multilayer materials composed of alternating layers of poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) polymer and vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays, and characterize their mechanical response in compression. The CNT arrays used in the assembly are synthesized with graded mechanical properties along their thickness, and their use enables the creation of multilayer structures with low density (0.12–0.28 g/cm^3). We test the mechanical response of structures composed of different numbers of CNT layers partially embedded in PDMS polymer, under quasi-static and dynamic loading. The resulting materials exhibit a hierarchical, fibrous structure with unique mechanical properties: They can sustain large compressive deformations (~0.8 strain) with a nearly complete recovery and present strain localization in selected sections of the materials. Energy absorption, as determined by the hysteresis observed in stress–strain curves, is found to be at least 3 orders of magnitude larger than that of natural and synthetic cellular materials of comparable density. Conductive bucky paper is included within the polymer interlayers. This allows the measurement of resistance variation as a function of applied stress, showing strong correlation with the observed strain localization in compression.