We describe carbon nanotube (CNT) based coatings for thermal detectors for laser power and energy measurements. The value of thermal properties of CNTs obtained from the literature indicates that such coatings have desirable properties such as low thermal mass and high thermal conductivity. We describe the process by which we produce CNTs and apply them to thermal detectors, including laser vaporization and chemical vapour deposition on detector materials such as LiTaO3, LiNbO3 and copper. We describe additional novel processing steps that include surface preparation, the deposition of a barrier layer and annealing in air. We present spectral responsivity measurements over the wavelength range from 0.8 µm to 14 µm for carbon single wall nanotubes (SWNTs) as well as carbon multiwall nantotubes (MWNTs) compared to gold black.

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