UConn Physics Colloquium

By experiment and supporting theory we demonstrate the facile, electronically driven, modulation of the electronic contact-barrier across the junction between single wall carbon nanotubes and two distinct organic semiconductors, enabling a new realm of application for carbon nanotubes.  We exploit this ability to demonstrate two novel devices: a vertical field effect transistor and a vertical light emitting transistor.  The vertical architecture, readily facilitated by the properties of the nanotubes, allows the use of low mobility semiconductors that would otherwise be considered unsuitable for field effect transistors, expanding the range of potential active materials.  For the light emitting transistor, for which the emitted light intensity is controlled by a gate field, the vertical architecture allows light emission across the entire area of the electroluminescent layer rather than the narrow, linear emission of planar designs.  The gate control should permit new pixel drive schemes and affords the likelihood of increased device lifetimes.