Controlled carbon nanotubes assembly for nanoelectronics

Project Information

ARCHITECHTUBE

Grant agreement ID: 9625

Project closed

Start date 1 February 2005

End date 30 September 2005

Funded under

• Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006

Total cost No data

EU contribution € 159 613,00

Coordinated by

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom

Objective

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) form the basis of most current nanotechnology research due to their unique and extreme properties including ballistic electron transport at room temperature, structure-dependent metallic/semiconductor behaviour, electromechanical properties and extremely high Young mudulus. Several important achievements have been realised in nanotubes electronics. However, a major hindrance for the emergence of real applications is the lack of control in fabricating these nanoscale devices. This project will develop new rational design methods for CNTs based electronic nanodevices.

Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) will be employed to grow CNTs at the desired location by placing the catalyst dots where required by focused ion beam and e-beam lithograp hy. We will combine Ni and Co colloids chemistry and e-beam lithography to obtain small catalyst dots suitable for the growth of single wall CNTs. The recently discovered mechanism of sequential catalytic growth will be used to control the direct insertion of CNTs with spin-polarised particles during their growth. Plasma enhanced CVD will be employed for growing CNTs on thermal-sensitive substrates. Nanotubes will be oriented by the application of an electric field and by lateral growth using growth barriers.

The ballistic transport of nanotubes is presently accompanied by a large contact resistance, so that the overall conductance is much lower in practice than the expected theoretical conductance. In situ growth will enable direct connecting of the nanotubes and prevent damage and pollution induced by the usual suspension/deposition process. Individual CNT structure will be characterised by in situ AFM/Raman analyses to correlate growth conditions, structural and transport properties. By using these tools, we intend to develop direct and controlled design of CNT based interconnects, field emission transistors and spin-valve devices.

Fields of science

• natural sciences › physical sciences › condensed matter physics › soft matter physics
• natural sciences › earth and related environmental sciences › environmental sciences › pollution
• natural sciences › physical sciences › electromagnetism and electronics › semiconductivity
• natural sciences › chemical sciences › catalysis
• engineering and technology › nanotechnology › nanoelectronics

Keywords

• Nanotube engineering
• individual nano-object growth

Programme(s)

• FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006

Topic(s)

• MOBILITY-2.1 - Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (EIF)

Call for proposal

FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships

Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: The Old Schools, Trinity Lane ; CAMBRIDGE ; United Kingdom
• Total cost: No data