Carbon Nanotube Forests on SiC: Structural and Electrical Properties

Because carbon nanotube forest formed by surface decomposition of silicon carbide (CNT forest on SiC) is densely packed and vertically aligned with no entangle parts, it is useful to investigate the electrical properties of dense CNT forest. CNTs atomically bond to SiC substrates, causing good electrical contact for SiC power devices, where the Schottky barrier height is considerably low as ~0.4 eV. CNTs contact with each other in dense CNT forest and contact conductance of CNT/CNT interface can be evaluated as ~108 S cm−2. This value corresponds to the tunneling conductance between electron clouds of adjacent graphene sheets.