Keywords

Electrical breakdown, carbon nanotube, aligned array

Abstract

Massively parallel arrays of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have attracted significant research interests because of their ability to (i) average out inhomogeneities of individual SWNTs, (ii) provide larger on currents, and (iii) reduce noise to provide higher cutoff frequency for radio frequency applications. However, the array contains both metallic and semiconducting SWNTs and the presence of metallic nanotube in an aligned array negatively affects the device properties. Therefore, it is essential to selectively remove metallic nanotubes to obtain better transistor properties. It was recently found that although such a selective removal can be effective for a low density array, it does not work in a high density array and lead to a correlated breakdown of the entire array giving rise to a nanofissure pattern. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of such a correlated SWNT breakdown, we studied the breakdown power in the successive electrical breakdown of both low ( < 2 /um) and high density ( > 10 /um) SWNT arrays. We show that the breakdown voltage in successive electrical breakdown increases for low density array while it decreases for high density arrays. The estimated power required for the breakdown remains constant for low density arrays while it decreases for high density arrays in successive electrical breakdowns. We also show that, while a simple model of parallel resistor network can explain the breakdown of low density array, it cannot explain the behavior for the high density array implying that the correlation between the closely spaced parallel nanotubes plays a big role in the successive breakdowns of the high density SWNTs.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2012

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Khondaker, Saiful

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Physics

Degree Program

Physics

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0004518

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0004518

Language

English

Release Date

December 2013

Length of Campus-only Access

1 year

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences, Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

Included in

Physics Commons

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