Carbon nanotube transistors pave way to improved electronics

Led by materials science Associate Professor Michael Arnold and Professor Padma Gopalan, the team has reported the highest-performing carbon nanotube transistors ever demonstrated. In addition to paving the way for improved consumer electronics, this technology could also have specific uses in industrial and military applications.

In a paper published in ACS Nano, Arnold, Gopalan and their students reported transistors with an on-off ratio claimed to be 1,000 times better and a conductance that is 100 times better than previous carbon nanotube transistors.

‘Carbon nanotubes are very strong and very flexible, so they could also be used to make flexible displays and electronics that can stretch and bend, allowing you to integrate electronics into new places like clothing,’ Arnold said in a statement. ‘The advance enables new types of electronics that aren’t possible with the more brittle materials manufacturers are currently using.’

Carbon nanotubes are single atomic sheets of carbon rolled up into a tube. As some of the best electrical conductors ever discovered, carbon nanotubes have long been recognised as a promising material for next-generation transistors.