Nanowelding of carbon nanotube-metal contacts: An effective way to control the Schottky barrier and performance of carbon nanotube based field effect transistors

Schottky barriers formed at carbon nanotube (CNT)-metal contacts have been well known to be crucial for the performance of CNT based field effect transistors (FETs). Through first principles calculations we show that a nanowelding process can drastically reduce the Schottky barriers at CNT-metal interfaces, resulting in significantly improved conductivity of CNT-based FETs. The proposed nanowelding can be realized by either laser local heating or a heating process via a controllable pulse current. Results presented in this paper may have great implications in future design and applications of CNT-based electronics. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4711082]