A Fully Tunable Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Diode

TL;DR

This paper presents a fully tunable single-walled carbon nanotube diode with adjustable turn-on voltage and the first demonstration of a nanotube backward diode with high nonlinearity, promising for advanced nanoelectronics.

Contribution

It introduces a fully tunable nanotube diode with adjustable characteristics and demonstrates the first nanotube backward diode with superior nonlinearity.

Findings

Turn-on voltage tunable up to 4.3 V

First demonstration of nanotube backward diode

High nonlinearity exceeding ideal diode

Abstract

We demonstrate a fully tunable diode structure utilizing a fully suspended single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT). The diode's turn-on voltage under forward bias can be continuously tuned up to 4.3 V by controlling gate voltages, which is ~6 times the nanotube bandgap energy. Furthermore, the same device design can be configured into a backward diode by tuning the band-to-band tunneling current with gate voltages. A nanotube backward diode is demonstrated for the first time with nonlinearity exceeding the ideal diode. These results suggest that a tunable nanotube diode can be a unique building block for developing next generation programmable nanoelectronic logic and integrated circuits.