Electrical properties of 0.4 cm long single-walled carbon nanotubes

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that centimeter-long single-walled carbon nanotubes can be grown with excellent electrical properties, enabling their use in large-scale integrated circuits without complex post-growth processing.

Contribution

We report the growth and electrical characterization of 0.4 cm long aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes with in-situ electrical contact, extending their transport properties to macroscopic scales.

Findings

Nanotubes grow both with and against the wind.

Electrical transport follows a classical diffusive model.

Transport properties are maintained at centimeter scale.

Abstract

Centimeter scale aligned carbon nanotube arrays are grown from nanoparticle metal catalyst pads. We find the nanotubes grow both with and against the wind. A metal underlayer provides in-situ electrical contact to these long nanotubes with no post growth processing needed. Using the electrically contacted nanotubes, we study electrical transport of 0.4 cm long nanotubes. The source drain I-V curves are quantitatively described by a classical, diffusive model. Our measurements show that the outstanding transport properties of nanotubes can be extended to the cm scale and open the door to large scale integrated nanotube circuits with macroscopic dimensions.