Enhanced performance of ZnO nanocomposite transistor by simple mechanical compression

A simple yet effective method is developed to enhance the electrical properties of ZnO nanowire-polymer nanocomposite. While the as-cast nanocomposite devices showed no detectable current output due to the absence of continuous wire-to-wire contacts, devices pressed at 300 or 600 kPa exhibit significantly enhanced device performances. Such a drastic performance improvement would be due to the generation of more direct contacts between nanowires, leading to continuous electrical pathways for the device. The approach introduced here would be a general way to get percolation threshold in various nanocomposites, without changing the loading content of filler materials.