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Spatial and Contamination-Dependent Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes

Chris J. Barnett, Cathren Gowenlock Orcid Logo, Kathryn Welsby, Alvin Orbaek White Orcid Logo, Andrew Barron Orcid Logo

Nano Letters, Volume: 18, Issue: 2, Pages: 695 - 700

Swansea University Authors: Cathren Gowenlock Orcid Logo, Alvin Orbaek White Orcid Logo, Andrew Barron Orcid Logo

Abstract

Two-point probe and Raman spectroscopy have been used to investigate the effects of vacuum annealing and argon bombardment, on the conduction characteristics of MWCNTs. Surface contamination has a large effect on the two-point probe conductivity measurements resulting in inconsistent and non-reprodu...

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Published in: Nano Letters
ISSN: 1530-6984 1530-6992
Published: 2018
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa37946
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Abstract: Two-point probe and Raman spectroscopy have been used to investigate the effects of vacuum annealing and argon bombardment, on the conduction characteristics of MWCNTs. Surface contamination has a large effect on the two-point probe conductivity measurements resulting in inconsistent and non-reproducible contacts as well as enhancing the electric field under the contacts resulting from overlapping depletion regions when probe separations are small (< 4 μm) causing very high resistances. Annealing at 200 °C and 500 °C reduced the surface contamination on the MWCNT, but high resistance contacts still did not allow intrinsic conductivity measurements of the MWCNT. The high resistance measured due to the overlapping depletion regions was not observed after annealing to 500 °C. Argon bombardment reduced the surface contamination more than vacuum annealing at 500 °C but caused a slight increase in the defects concentration, enabling the resistivity of the MWCNT to be calculated, which is found to be dependent on the CNT diameter. The observations have significant implications for future CNT-based devices.
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 2
Start Page: 695
End Page: 700