Electron transport characteristics of one-dimensional heterojunctions with multi-nitrogen-doped capped carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We present a systematic analysis of electron transport characteristics for one-dimensional heterojunctions with two multi-nitrogen-doped (multi-N-doped) capped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) facing one another at different numbers of nitrogen atoms and conformations. Our results show that the modification of the molecular orbitals by the nitrogen dopants generates conducting channels in the designed heterojunctions inducing multi-switching behavior with sequential negative differential resistance (NDR). The NDR behavior significantly depends on the doping site and conformation of doped nitrogen atoms. Furthermore, we provide a clear interpretation for the NDR behavior by a rigid shift model of the HOMO- and LUMO-filtered energy levels in the left and right electrodes under the applied biases. We believe that our results will give an insight into the design and implementation of various electronic logic functions based on CNTs for applications in the field of nanoelectronics.