October 29, 2003

Kinky Nanotube

Source:  Cees Dekker

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The ultimate device miniaturization would be to use individual molecules as functional devices. Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are promising candidates for achieving this: depending on their diameter and chirality, they are either one-dimensional metals or semiconductors.

 

Kinks in carbon nanotubes create different conduction environments for electrons moving along the tube. The nanotube wire on one side of the kink (the bend is possible because of some pentagon or heptagon structures among an otherwise hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms) might, for example, be a conductor while on the other side the wire might be a semiconductor. This intramolecular versatility will help the designers of nanocircuits. The atomic force microscope image, showing a kinked nanotube draped across three electrodes, was recorded by Cees Dekker and his colleagues at Delft University in The Netherlands.