Impact of carbon nanotube length on electron transport in aligned carbon nanotube networks
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
- Metis Design Corporation, 205 Portland St., Boston, Massachusetts 02114 (United States)
Here, we quantify the electron transport properties of aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) networks as a function of the CNT length, where the electrical conductivities may be tuned by up to 10× with anisotropies exceeding 40%. Testing at elevated temperatures demonstrates that the aligned CNT networks have a negative temperature coefficient of resistance, and application of the fluctuation induced tunneling model leads to an activation energy of ≈14 meV for electron tunneling at the CNT-CNT junctions. Since the tunneling activation energy is shown to be independent of both CNT length and orientation, the variation in electron transport is attributed to the number of CNT-CNT junctions an electron must tunnel through during its percolated path, which is proportional to the morphology of the aligned CNT network.
- OSTI ID:
- 22420267
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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