Interface study of metal electrode and semiconducting carbon nanotubes: effects of electrode atomic species

Presented herein are the first principle calculations of the transport properties of semiconducting carbon nanotubes (CNT´s), coupled to metallic electrodes. Our preliminary results indicate that for simple contact geometries, the Fermi level lies roughly in the middle of the gap for palladium-contacted CNT´s, while it is pinned at the bottom of the conduction band for gold-contacted CNT´s. This is interesting because both of these metals possess similar work functions. Additionally the charge transfer at the interface is larger in palladium contacted CNT, compared with gold contacted case.