Electron transport and hot phonons in carbon nanotubes

We demonstrate the key role of phonon occupation in limiting the high-field ballistic transport in metallic carbon nanotubes. In particular, we provide a simple analytic formula for the electron transport scattering length, which we validate by accurate first principles calculations on (6, 6) and (1...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2005-12, Vol.95 (23), p.236802.1-236802.4, Article 236802
Main Authors: LAZZERI, Michele, PISCANEC, S, MAURI, Francesco, FERRARI, A. C, ROBERTSON, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties
Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures
Electronic transport in multilayers, nanoscale materials and structures
Exact sciences and technology
Materials Science
Nanotubes
Physics
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Summary:We demonstrate the key role of phonon occupation in limiting the high-field ballistic transport in metallic carbon nanotubes. In particular, we provide a simple analytic formula for the electron transport scattering length, which we validate by accurate first principles calculations on (6, 6) and (11, 11) nanotubes. The comparison of our results with the scattering lengths fitted from experimental I-V curves indicates the presence of a nonequilibrium optical phonon heating induced by electron transport. We predict an effective temperature for optical phonons of thousands Kelvin.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.95.236802