The effect of deformation on room temperature coulomb blockade using conductive carbon nanotubes

Paper presented at the 29th Annual International Conference of IEEE-EMBS, Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC'07, Lyon, France.We report fluctuations in resistivity and the manifestation of Coulomb blockade phenomena of conductive multiwalled carbon nanotubes under buckling loads. Individual nanotubes were suspended and soldered between two indium-dipped tungsten probe tips. Using the electrical connection between the probes and the nanotube, electrical measurements were taken with the tube straight (unstrained) and bent (strained). Typical resistances were in the 10 GΩ range with resistivities in the 15 to 30 Ω−m range within the Coulomb blockade region of -1.0 to -0.4 V. Coulomb blockade, or electron tunneling events, appeared to occur at one of the contact points. This effect was diminished or lost once the carbon weld was broken