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Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have been grown via chemical vapor deposition on high-kappa dielectric SrTiO3/Si substrates, and high-performance semiconducting SWNT field-effect transistors have been fabricated using the thin SrTiO3 as gate dielectric and Si as gate electrode. The transconductance per channel width is 8900 S/m. The high transconductance cannot be explained by the increased gate capacitance; it is proposed that the increased electric field at the nanotube-electrode interface due to the high-kappa SrTiO3 decreases or eliminates the nanotube-electrode Schottky barrier., 13 pages, 1 table, 3 figures, to appear in Appl. Phys. Lett

We demonstrate the use of field-emission scanning electron microscopy for rapid imaging of small-diameter carbon nanotubes on insulating SiO2 substrates. The image contrast stems from local potential differences between the nanotube and substrate and is insensitive to surface roughness and defects. This technique may also be used as a probe of the electrical connectivity of small structures without external leads.

Bismuth selenide Bi$_2$Se$_3$ was grown by molecular beam epitaxy while carrier density and mobility were measured directly \emph{in situ} as a function of film thickness. Carrier density shows high interface n-doping (1.5 x 10$^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$) at the onset of film conduction, and bulk dopant density of $\sim$5 x 10$^{18}$ cm$^{-3}$, roughly independent of growth temperature profile. Mobility depends more strongly on the growth temperature and is related to the crystalline quality of the samples quantified by \emph{ex-situ} AFM measurements. These results indicate that Bi$_2$Se$_3$ as prepared by widely employed parameters is \emph{n}-doped before exposure to atmosphere, the doping is largely interfacial in origin, and dopants are not the limiting disorder in present Bi$_2$Se$_3$ films., 4 pages, 4 figures

Ambient-environment Kelvin probe microscopy of many (10 μm)2 areas of single-layer graphene on SiC(0001) shows area-to-area rms surface potential variation of 12 meV. Electronic transport data are consistent with the minimum conductivity regime. Together the data indicate a highly uniform carrier concentration with a small magnitude (

Thermal transport in carbon nanotubes is explored using different laser powers to heat suspended single-walled carbon nanotubes ∼5μm in length. The temperature change along the length of a nanotube is determined from the temperature-induced shifts in the G band Raman frequency. The spatial temperature profile reveals the ratio of the contact thermal resistance to the intrinsic thermal resistance of the nanotube. Moreover, the obtained temperature profiles allow differentiation between diffusive and ballistic phonon transport. Diffusive transport is observed in all nanotubes measured and the ratio of thermal contact resistance to intrinsic nanotube thermal resistance is found to range from 0.02 to 17.

Graphitic nanostructures, e.g. carbon nanotubes (CNT) and graphene, have been proposed as ideal materials for spin conduction[1-7]; they have long electronic mean free paths[8] and small spin-orbit coupling[9], hence are expected to have very long spin-scattering times. In addition, spin injection and detection in graphene opens new opportunities to study exotic electronic states such as the quantum Hall[10,11] and quantum spin Hall[9] states, and spin-polarized edge states[12] in graphene ribbons. Here we perform the first non-local four-probe experiments[13] on graphene contacted by ferromagnetic Permalloy electrodes. We observe sharp switching and often sign-reversal of the non-local resistance at the coercive field of the electrodes, indicating definitively the presence of a spin current between injector and detector. The non-local resistance changes magnitude and sign quasi-periodically with back-gate voltage, and Fabry-Perot-like oscillations[6,14,15] are observed, consistent with quantum-coherent transport. The non-local resistance signal can be observed up to at least T = 300 K.

The 1/f noise in individual semiconducting carbon nanotubes (s-CNT) in a field effect transistor configuration has been measured in ultra-high vacuum and following exposure to air. The amplitude of the normalized current spectral noise density is independent of source-drain current, indicating the noise is due to mobility rather than number fluctuations. Hooge's constant for s-CNT is found to be 9.3 plus minus 0.4x10^-3. The magnitude of the 1/f noise is substantially degreased by exposing the devices to air.

Controlled electromigration of gold nanowires of different cross-sectional areas to form nanogap junctions is studied using a feedback method. A linear correlation between the cross sectional area of the gold nanowires and the power dissipated in the junction during electromigration is observed, indicating that the feedback mechanism operates primarily by controlling the temperature of the junction during electromigration. We also show that the role of the external feedback circuit is to prevent thermal runaway; minimization of series resistance allows controlled electromigration to a significant range of junction resistances with a simple voltage ramp., Comment: 14 pages,5 figures