Resistive Analysis of Scattering-Dependent Electrical Transport in Single-Wall Carbon-Nanotube Networks

Abstract

With the development of separation and sorting techniques, highly enriched semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have become widely accessible, which has led to the rapid growth of high-performance solution-processed SWNT-based thin-film field-effect transistors (TFTs) showing capabilities comparable to the ideal single-SWNT FETs. With such improvements, theoretical studies and detailed analyses of these networks have become necessary. In this work, a model justifying the near-ideal electrical transport in SWNT networks is presented. The field-dependent resistive properties of the networks are calculated using a numerical solver based on the derived individual resistances of SWNTs and the intertube couplings. The model is capable of simulating mixed SWNT networks consisting of both metallic and semiconducting nanotubes of varying chiralities. Our analysis reveals that the high electrical currents in networks could be largely attributed to the suppression of phonon scattering and strong intertube couplings in highly dense SWNT networks (>30-40 SWNTs/μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ). Comparisons between the simulated and experimental results indicate good agreement thereby demonstrating the accuracy of the proposed model.