A Bucky shuttle three-terminal switching device: classical molecular dynamics study

Abstract

In this work, we investigated a fullerene shuttle memory device and a three-terminal transistor in a few nanometers based on the ideas of the fullerene intercalation in carbon nanotubes using classical molecular dynamics simulations. Energetics and the operations of a (K +@C 60)@C 640 shuttle memory element were investigated for several cases of the K +@C 60 under the external force fields. Energetics and the operations of the proposed three-terminal transistor were studied for the K +@C 60 endo-fullerene shuttle under external force fields. The switching processes between ‘turn-on’ and ‘turn-off’ were investigated under the external force fields. Turn-off or turn-on was achieved from the encapsulation of the endo-fullerene into the gate nanotube or the pushing-out of the endo-fullerene from the gate nanotube, respectively. The interactions between nanotubes and shuttle media stabilized the shuttle media at the gate nanotube cap and at the tunneling position between drain and source electrodes, where the contact areas were largest. This work shows that electromechanical molecular switching devices can be designed by using several charged endo-fullerenes and nanotubes.