Bias dependence and electrical breakdown of small diameter single-walled carbon nanotubes

The electronic breakdown and the bias dependence of the conductance have been investigated for a large number of catalytic chemical vapor deposition grown single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with very small diameters. The convenient fabrication of thousands of properly contacted SWCNTs was possible by growth on electrode structures and subsequent electroless palladium deposition. Almost all of the measured SWCNTs showed at least weak gate dependence at room temperature. Large differences in the conductance and breakdown behavior have been found for “normal” semiconducting SWCNTs and small band-gap semiconducting SWCNTs.