Schottky Barrier Formation at a Carbon Nanotube–Scandium Junction

Abstract

Recent experiment shows that scandium (Sc) can make a good performance contact with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to fabricate n-type field effect transistor (n-FET). We study the Schottky barrier (SB) of scandium (Sc) and palladium (Pd) with a (8,0) single-wall CNT (SWCNT) using first-principles calculation. It is found that the p-type SB height (SBH) of the Pd–CNT contact is about 0.34 eV, which is in good agreement with the experimental data. For the Sc-CNT contact, an n-type contact is formed and the SBH is about 0.08 eV in agreement with the experimental observations. Our calculation demonstrates that by contacting CNT with Pd and Sc, p-FET and n-FET can be fabricated, respectively. The dipole effect at the interface is used to explain our result.