Robinson D.
NASA Glenn Research Center, US
Keywords: charge, discrete, nanotube, trajectory, tunneling
It has been recently reported that the electrical charge in a semiconductive carbon nanotube is not evenly distributed, but is divided into charge “islands [1,2].” A clear understanding of tunneling phenomena can be useful to elucidate the mechanism for electrical conduction in nanotubes. This paper represents the first attempt to shed light on the aforementioned phenomenon through viewing tunneling as a natural consequence of “discrete trajectories.” The relevance of this analysis is that it may provide further insight into the higher rate of tunneling processes, which makes tunneling devices attractive [3]. In a situation involving particles impinging on a classically impenetrable barrier, the result of quantum mechanics that the probability of detecting transmitted particles falls off exponentially is derived without wave theory. This paper should provide a basis for calculating the charge profile over the length of the tube so that nanoscale devices’ conductive properties may be fully exploited.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 2, Technical Proceedings of the 2001 International Conference on Computational Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Published: March 19, 2001
Pages: 77 - 80
Industry sector: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Topic: Informatics, Modeling & Simulation
ISBN: 0-9708275-3-9