Special Condensed Matter Seminar

Chirstoph Stampfer
Micro and Nanosystems, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Monday, October 9, 2006
12:00 pm in SPL 38

Electromechanical Properties of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract: Research in the field of nanomechanics and nano electromechanical systems (NEMS) is growing rapidly with considerable potential for future ultra fast, high-sensitive, low-power devices. However, the inevitable development of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) down to the nanoscale (NEMS) level suffers from a discontinuity in process technologies and a non-optimal transfer of transducer concepts from microscale to nanoscale systems. We report on the fabrication and characterization of micro and nanometer-scale electromechanical transducers based on individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) to study their electromechanical properties. We show electrical, mechanical and electromechanical measurements proving the functionality of these devices to study the piezo-conductance in SWNTs. Finally, we discuss the electromechanical properties of SWNTs by discussing a model based on a strong band gap change as a function of applied tensile strain and we show measurements of extraordinary high piezoresistive gauge factors.