Electronic Applications of Carbon Nanotubes

Thomas Boyer
Carbon nanotubes can be imagined as sheets of graphene rolled
into a cylinder with open or closed end. Graphene is pure carbon
bonded into a single sheet of repeating hexagonal lattice patterns.
Graphene has many interesting applications and properties, and one
can imagine that carbon nanotubes, made from graphene, have similar
interesting applications and properties. Carbon nanotubes are
exceptionally strong and have interesting electronic properties. The
diameter and length of nanotubes vary drastically, but are categorized
as single or multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Their lengths can become
exceptionally large and are limited only by the time it takes to
manufacture them.
Carbon nanotubes have many promising applications, especially
in electronics. The most obvious application is to use them as nanowires because they can be highly conductive, but there are many
promising properties of
carbon nanotubes that
scientists find could be
used for electronic
applications. Carbon
nanotubes appear to be
useful for microelectronics
because of their
interesting electron
scattering and band gap
properties. They may be
Figure 1 Carbon Nanotube Transistor
used in transistors, connectors,
or memory. One group of scientists has even made capacitative wire
using nanotube composite fibers.
Carbon nanotubes can be either metallic or semiconducting, and
are categorized by their structure. Nanotubes in theory can carry an
electric current density of 4 x 109 A/cm^2, which is a thousand times
greater than that of copper.
Defects in the carbon nanotubes can cause a decrease in tensile
strength as well as a decrease in conductivity. Certain defects can
cause specific areas to become semiconducting or have different
magnetic properties, an example of such a defect would be a single
monatomic vacancy.

The main problem for electrical applications of carbon nanotubes

is the lack of ability for mass production. For example carbon nanotube
field-effect transistors have been made that operate at room
temperature, but there is no way to mass produce them accurately and
affordably at this moment.