A Simple Electrostatics Model for Nanotube/Metal Junction

Abstract

Making good Nanotube/Metal contact is one of the key requirements in making better performance nanotube electronics. We propose a simple electrostatic model, whose parameters are benchmarked against more sophisticated ab initio simulations, and studied the effects of the nanotube diameter on the quality of the contact. We found that the small effective contact area associated with small diameter tubes limits the injection of holes into the nanotube and deteriorates contact quality. The critical diameter for barrier free injection is ~1.6 nm, which agrees well with experiments. An experimental approach is proposed to verify the correctness of the model and determine the nature of the Nanotube/Metal heterojunction.