Role of Electrical and Thermal Contact Resistance in the High-Bias Joule Breakdown of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Devices

Several data sets of electrical breakdown in air of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on insulating substrates are collected and analyzed. These are data taken in different labs across the world on a wide range of SWNTs, spanning lengths 10 nm-8 mum, diameters 0.8 -3.2 nm and electrical contact resistance between 9-830 kOmega. A universal scaling of the Joule breakdown power with nanotube length is found, essentially independent of the insulating substrates used (here, SiO₂, Si₃N₄, Al₂O₃). The electrical and thermal resistance at the nanotube-electrode contacts regulate the breakdown behavior for short (L < 0.6 mum) SWNTs, whereas the breakdown power scales linearly with length for longer tubes.