Low Vacuum Annealing of Cellulose Acetate on Nickel Towards Transparent Conductive CNT–Graphene Hybrid Films

We report a versatile method based on low vacuum annealing of cellulose acetate on nickel (Ni) surface for rapid fabrication of graphene and carbon nanotube (CNT)–graphene hybrid films with tunable properties. Uniform films mainly composed of tri-layer graphene can be achieved via a surface precipitation of dissociated carbon at 800 °C for 30 seconds under vacuum conditions of ∼0.6 Pa. The surface precipitation process is further found to be efficient for joining the precipitated graphene with pre-coated CNTs on the Ni surface, consequently, generating the hybrid films. As expected, the hybrid films exhibit substantial opto-electrical and field electron emission properties superior to their individual counterparts. The finding suggests a promising route to hybridize the graphene with diverse nanomaterials for constructing novel hybrid materials with improved performances