Split gate and asymmetric contact carbon nanotube optical devices

Asymmetric contacts or split gate geometries can be used to obtain rectification, electroluminescence (EL) and photocurrent from carbon nanotube field effect transistors. Here, we report devices with both split gates and asymmetric contacts and show that device parameters can be optimised with an appropriate split gate bias, giving the ability to select the rectification direction, modify the reverse bias saturation current and the ideality factor. When operated as a photodiode, the short circuit current and open circuit voltage can be modified by the split gate bias, and the estimated power conversion efficiency was 1×10-6. When using split gates and symmetric contacts, strong EL peaking at 0.86 eV was observed with a full width at half maximum varying between 64 and 120 meV, depending on the bias configuration. The power and quantum efficiency of the EL was estimated to be around 1×10-6 and 1×10-5 respectively.