Metallic Electrode: Semiconducting Nanotube Junction Model

Abstract

A model is proposed for two observed current-voltage (I-V) patterns in an experiment with a scanning tunneling microscope tip and a carbon nanotube [Collins et al., Science 278, 100 ('97)]. We claim that there are two contact modes for a tip (metal) -nanotube semi conductor) junction depending whether the alignment of the metal and semiconductor band structure is (1) variable (vacuum-gap) or (2) fixed (touching) with V. With the tip grounded, the tunneling case in (1) would produce large dI/dV with V > 0, small dI/dV with V < 0, and I = 0 near V = 0 for an either n- or p-nanotube. However, the Schottky mechanism in (2) would result in forward current with V < 0 for an n-nanotube, while with V > 0 for an p-nanotube. The two observed I-V patterns are thus entirely explained by a tip-nanotube contact of the two types, where the nanotube must be n-type. We apply this picture to the source-drain I-V characteristics in a long nanotube-channel field-effect-transistor (Zhou et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 1597 ('00)], and show that two independent metal-semiconductor junctions connected in series are responsible for the observed behavior.