Transparent and conductive Ti₃C₂T_x (MXene) thin film fabrication by electrohydrodynamic atomization technique

In this work conducting thin films have been fabricated from two-dimensional Ti₃C₂T_x (MXene) using cheap and vacuum free solution processible electrohydrodynamic atomization technique, for the first time. Delaminated Ti₃C₂T_x dispersed in ethanol has been processed and optimized deposition parameters have been achieved to deposit Ti₃C₂T_x thin film, directly. Three films of Ti₃C₂T_x with different thickness (135, 248 and 337 nm) based on deposition time i.e. 20 min (S1), 40 min (S2) and 60 min (S3) were fabricated on glass substrate, respectively. After which, films were annealed at 400 °C for 2 h in an inert environment. Films were fully characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV–Vis-NIR, X-Ray Diffraction and the Zahner XPOT. Resistivity of S1, S2 and S3 were calculated to be 3.4 × 10⁻⁴ Ω-cm, 130 × 10⁻⁴ Ω-cm and 210 × 10⁻⁴ Ω-cm respectively ~86.7 % transmittance has obtained for S1 at 550 nm. For investigating electrode performance for Ti₃C₂T_x, films are applied as top electrode in diode (FTO/TiO₂/Ti₃C₂T_x). It has been observed that S1 has shown the best diode behavior with 120 mA at 3 V. Therefore, we claim that two dimensional Ti₃C₂T_x MXene thin films have great potential to be further investigated for utilizing in photo-electronics, energy storage devices and sensing applications.