Chemical Bonding and Schottky Barrier for Metal-Carbon Nanotube Contacts

Abstract

We investigate both end-contact and side-contact structures between Al, Pd, Sc and carbon nanotube (CNT) in this paper. The different structures show the different chemical bonds and charge transfer at the metal-CNT contact interfaces. A novel method based on dipole effect is proposed to calculate the Schottky barrier height (SBH). Different SBHs for the contacts are due to different electro-negativity of metal atoms as well as the chemical bonds.