Breaking the electrical barrier between copper and carbon nanotubes.
Authors
Ghorbani-Asl, Mahdi
Burda, Marek
Wolanicka, Lidia
Koziol, Krzysztof KK
Publication Date
2017-06-22Journal Title
Nanoscale
ISSN
2040-3364
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Volume
9
Issue
24
Pages
8458-8469
Language
eng
Type
Article
Physical Medium
Print
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Milowska, K., Ghorbani-Asl, M., Burda, M., Wolanicka, L., Ćatić, N., Bristowe, P., & Koziol, K. K. (2017). Breaking the electrical barrier between copper and carbon nanotubes.. Nanoscale, 9 (24), 8458-8469. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr02142a
Abstract
Improving the interface between copper and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) offers a straightforward strategy for the effective manufacturing and utilisation of Cu-CNT composite material that could be used in various industries including microelectronics, aerospace and transportation. Motivated by a combination of structural and electrical measurements on Cu-M-CNT bimetal systems (M = Ni, Cr) we show, using first principles calculations, that the conductance of this composite can exceed that of a pure Cu-CNT system and that the current density can even reach 1011 A cm-2. The results show that the proper choice of alloying element (M) and type of contact facilitate the fabrication of ultra-conductive Cu-M-CNT systems by creating a favourable interface geometry, increasing the interface electronic density of states and reducing the contact resistance. In particular, a small concentration of Ni between the Cu matrix and the CNT using either an "end contact" and or a "dot contact" can significantly improve the electrical performance of the composite. Furthermore the predicted conductance of Ni-doped Cu-CNT "carpets" exceeds that of an undoped system by ∼200%. Cr is shown to improve CNT integration and composite conductance over a wide temperature range while Al, at low voltages, can enhance the conductance beyond that of Cr.
Sponsorship
European Commission (609057)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr02142a
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285527
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