The drift response to a high-electric field in carbon nanotubes

• Main Authors: Vidhi, Rachana, Tan, Michael Loong Peng, Saxena, Tanuj, Hashim, Abdul Manaf, Arora, Vijay Kumar
• Format: Article
• Published: Bentham Science Publishers 2010
• Subjects: TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/26560/; http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/157341310797575050

The carrier statistics in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with nonparabolic energy spectrum is studied in order to predict the ultimate (intrinsic) drift velocity as a function of temperature, concentration, and chirality. The extremely high mobilities in CNTs do not necessarily lead to higher saturation velocity that is limited to the intrinsic velocity calculated using Arora's formalism [V. K. Arora, Current Nanoscience 5, 227(2009)]. The ballistic nature of the mobility when CNT length is smaller than the scattering-limited mean free path is delineated. The results are of enormous importance in extracting carrier transport properties from a variety of experiments performed on CNTs.