Letter abstract
Nature Materials 4, 534 - 539 (2005)
Published online: 19 June 2005 | doi:10.1038/nmat1414
Subject Categories: Ceramics | Colloids | Electronic materials
Tuning the conductance of single-walled carbon nanotubes by ion irradiation in the Anderson localization regime
C. Gómez-Navarro1, P. J. De Pablo1, J. Gómez-Herrero1, B. Biel2, F. J. Garcia-Vidal2, A. Rubio3 & F. Flores2
Carbon nanotubes1, 2 are a good realization of one-dimensional crystals where basic science and potential nanodevice applications merge3. Defects are known to modify the electrical resistance of carbon nanotubes4; they can be present in as-grown carbon nanotubes, but controlling their density externally opens a path towards the tuning of the electronic characteristics of the nanotube. In this work, consecutive Ar+ irradiation doses are applied to single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) producing a uniform density of defects. After each dose, the room-temperature resistance versus SWNT length (R(L)) along the nanotube is measured. Our data show an exponential dependence of R(L) indicating that the system is within the strong Anderson localization regime. Theoretical simulations demonstrate that mainly di-vacancies contribute to the resistance increase induced by irradiation, and that just a 0.03% of di-vacancies produces an increase of three orders of magnitude in the resistance of a SWNT of 400 nm length.
- Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
- Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
- Departamento de Física de Materiales, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), E-20018-San Sebastián, Spain
Correspondence to: J. Gómez-Herrero1 e-mail: julio.gomez@uam.es
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