Efficient and Reversible Electron Doping of Semiconductor-Enriched Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes by Using Decamethylcobaltocene

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) offer great potential for field-effect transistors and integrated circuit applications due to their extraordinary electrical properties. To date, as-made SWCNT transistors are usually p-type in air, and it still remains challenging for realizing n-type devices. Herein, we present efficient and reversible electron doping of semiconductor-enriched single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) by firstly utilizing decamethylcobaltocene (DMC) deposited by a simple spin-coating process at room temperature as an electron donor. A n-type transistor behavior with high on current, large I_on/I_off ratio and excellent uniformity is obtained by surface charge transfer from the electron donor DMC to acceptor s-SWCNTs, which is further corroborated by the Raman spectra and the ab initio simulation results. The DMC dopant molecules could be reversibly removed by immersion in N, N-Dimethylformamide solvent, indicating its reversibility and providing another way to control the carrier concentration effectively as well as selective removal of surface dopants on demand. Furthermore, the n-type behaviors including threshold voltage, on current, field-effect mobility, contact resistances, etc. are well controllable by adjusting the surface doping concentration. This work paves the way to explore and obtain high-performance n-type nanotubes for future complementary CMOS circuit and system applications.