Polymer-wrapped Carbon Nanotubes for high performance field effect transistors

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The aim of this project is to fabricate highly performing field effect transistors by self-assembling semiconducting carbon nanotubes. While the demand for larger information storage capacity and higher speed information processing are greater than ever, the down scalability of conventional silicon-based materials are approaching their limits, driving the search for new technologies. Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) offer unprecedented potential for miniaturization as a robust, nanometer size material with unique electronic properties. Due to their semiconducting properties and ballistic (scattering free) transport, they address the need for highly performing semiconductors which have the potential of a low cost technology. In spite of the fact that carbon nanotube devices shown carrier mobilities of up to 1000 times higher than that of the actual (Si based) transistors, their use in industrial application remains elusive. The most serious problems are: i) the inability to produce large quantities of nanotubes with the same physical properties (semiconducting), ii) the difficulty to place individual nanotubes in predetermined positions on a surface. This project will address both problems by taking advantage of conjugated polymer wrapped SWNTs to obtain i) samples enriched of semiconducting SWNTs and ii) controlled placement through self-assembly. Recognition of semiconducting tubes will be achieved by wrapping them with specific conjugated polymers. Furthermore, the polymers will be used as anchoring system to address the SWNTs on specific substrates positions and fabricate transistors by self-assembly.