3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Dynamic electrical transport in carbon nanotubes and nanodiamond films(2014) Chimowa, GeorgeA comprehensive experimental study on alternating current (AC) electrical transport in the three forms of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and nanodiamond films is presented. It is termed dynamic electrical transport to differentiate it from direct current measurements, which may be referred as static transport. The results and analysis are based on the scattering parameter measurements of a few horizontally aligned single, double, multi-walled carbon nanotubes and nanodiamond films. Which were measured in the frequency range 10 MHz to 65 GHz, at room and cryogenic temperatures using a vector network analyser. The work is motivated by the fact that AC transport in 1D systems has not been fully studied and is not well understood. From direct current measurements, it is known that one dimensional (1D) electrical transport is very different from its two or three dimensional counterpart. This is because adding an electron to a 1D system tends to affect the whole system in ways which to date cannot be fully explained theoretically. CNTs present an ideal platform to study the AC or dynamic transport behaviour of 1D systems because of the high mobility and electrical conductivity at nano-scale. Therefore from the AC complex impedance and conductance, this work demonstrates quantum effects of collectively excited strongly interacting electrons (Luttinger Liquid), which had been predicted theoretically but not observed experimentally using this technique. Ballistic transport at room temperature is also demonstrated by setting the stimulus frequency higher than the scattering rate in the CNTs. A crossover from capacitive to inductive behaviour in the imaginary component of impedance has been shown by improving the CNT-electrode coupling. Furthermore the effect of metal contacts on microwave/ radio frequency transmission is also demonstrated. The results are consolidated by RF simulations, as strong conclusions are drawn. Studies on the dynamic transport in nanodiamond films revealed a crossover from the insulating to semi-metallic regime by nitrogen incorporation. The crossover is explained by considering the changes of the grain boundary morphology. This work shows that AC transport in polycrystalline nanodiamond films is similar to DC transport.Item Synthesis and characterization of nano-crystalline diamond films(2011-09-13) Chimowa, GeorgeThe objective of this project is to understand the details of the electronic transport in low dimensional carbon structures at low temperatures as well as high magnetic fields. The emphasis is on the quasi-2 dimensional thin grain boundary regions of nanodiamond films and one dimensional carbon nanotubes. As such nitrogen “doped” and undoped nanodiamond films were synthesized by the hot filament chemical vapor deposition method (HFCVD). The films were micro-structurally and electrically characterized using several techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and magnetoresistance (MR) measurements. The electronic transport properties were compared to the films deposited by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (MWCVD). The conductivity revealed a typical semiconducting and semi-metallic behavior for the HFCVD films depending on the nitrogen percentage in the chamber. The dephasing time of the electronic wave function was found to be weakly temperature dependant i.e. τ T-p with p < 1, a behavior reported in artificial superlattices. These results show potential application of these materials in novel nano-electronic devices. Previously the transport mechanism in nanodiamond films has been attributed to hopping conduction in the grain boundaries which is predominately disordered sp2 phases. Our studies on nanodiamond films have however shown different mechanisms in these films. We observed very little contribution from hopping and pronounced weak localization contributions in nanodiamond films. We thus establish the significance of tunneling transport in nanodiamond films. We also studied the electronic transport in films of metal filled multiwalled carbon nanotubes which show significant contribution from the hopping mechanism and a negative magnetoresistance at low fields that crosses over into positive MR at high magnetic fields.