Gap states controlled transmission through 1D Metal-Nanotube junction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how metal-induced gap states (MIGS) influence carrier transport in 1D metal-nanotube junctions, revealing a power-law relationship between onset bias and conductance, which impacts CNT device design.

Contribution

It uncovers the role of MIGS in determining transistor drain characteristics and establishes a power-law scaling between onset bias and conductance in metal-CNT contacts.

Findings

MIGS influence drain characteristics near the OFF-state.

Onset bias scales as a power-law with zero-bias conductance.

Temperature measurements support MIGS' role in transport.

Abstract

Understanding the nature of metal/1D-semiconductor contacts such as metal/carbon nanotubes is a fundamental scientific and technological challenge for realizing high performance transistors\cite{Francois,Franklin}. A Schottky Barrier(SB) is usually formed at the interface of the $2D$ metal electrode with the $1D$ semiconducting carbon nanotube. As yet, experimental\cite{Appenzeller,Chen, Heinze, Derycke} and numerical \cite{Leonard, Jimenez} studies have generally failed\cite{Svensson} to come up with any functional relationship among the relevant variables affecting carrier transport across the SB owing to their unique geometries and complicated electrostatics. Here, we show that localized states called the metal induced gap states (MIGS)\cite{Tersoff,Leonard} already present in the barrier determines the transistor drain characteristics. These states seem to have little or no influence near the ON-state of the transistor but starts to affect the drain characteristics strongly as the OFF-state is approached. The role of MIGS is characterized by tracking the dynamics of the onset bias, $V_o$ of non-linear conduction in the drain characteristics with gate voltage $V_g$. We find that $V_o$ varies with the zero-bias conductance $G_o(V_g)$ for a gate bias $V_g$ as a power-law: $V_o$ $\sim $ ${G_o(V_g)}^x$ with an exponent $x$. The origin of this power-law relationship is tentatively suggested as a result of power-law variation of effective barrier height with $V_g$, corroborated by previous theoretical and experimental results\cite{Appenzeller}. The influence of MIGS states on transport is further verified independently by temperature dependent measurements. The unexpected scaling behavior seem to be very generic for metal/CNT contact providing an experimental forecast for designing state of the art CNT devices.