Bolometric and non-bolometric radio frequency detection in a metallic single-walled carbon nanotube

We characterize radio frequency detection in a high-quality metallic single-walled carbon nanotube. At a bath temperature of 77 K, only bolometric (thermal) detection is seen. At a bath temperature of 4.2 K and low bias current, the response is due instead to the electrical nonlinearity of the non-ohmic contacts. At higher bias currents, the contacts recover ohmic behavior and the observed response agrees well with the calculated bolometric responsivity. The bolometric response is expected to operate at terahertz frequencies, and we discuss some of the practical issues associated with developing high frequency detectors based on carbon nanotubes.Comment: 11 pages (double-spaced), 3 figure

Scaling of resistance and electron mean free path of single-walled carbon nanotubes

We present an experimental investigation on the scaling of resistance in individual single-walled carbon nanotube devices with channel lengths that vary 4 orders of magnitude on the same sample. The electron mean free path is obtained from the linear scaling of resistance with length at various temperatures. The low temperature mean free path is determined by impurity scattering, while at high temperature, the mean free path decreases with increasing temperature, indicating that it is limited by electron-phonon scattering. An unusually long mean free path at room temperature has been experimentally confirmed. Exponentially increasing resistance with length at extremely long length scales suggests anomalous localization effects