Avalanche-Induced Current Enhancement in Semiconducting Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

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  • 8 August 2008
Abstract
Semiconducting single-wall nanotubes driven into impact ionization show a remarkable current increase, up to 50% higher than previous diffusive theory and measurements. Unlike in bulk semiconductors, the avalanche process in nanotubes involves access to the third sub-band, is insensitive to temperature, yet strongly dependent on diameter ~exp(-1/d^2). Fitting with a theoretical model yields a novel method to obtain the optical phonon emission length, L_OP,ems ~ 15d nm, in good agreement with previous theoretical work. The study shows that multi-band transport is essential in carbon nanotubes, and may be exploited for enhanced device applications.

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