Photovoltaic effect in single carbon nanotube-based Schottky diodes

Photovoltaic effects in individual single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) based Schottky diodes were investigated for infrared detection in this paper. Different contact conditions (symmetric and asymmetric CNT-metal contacts) have been studied for optimising the performance of SWCNT-based infrared detector. Experiments demonstrated that the asymmetric structure could improve the photodiode performance by increasing the signal-to-dark current ratio up to two orders of magnitude higher than a symmetric device. With the perfect photodiode I-V characteristic curves, SWCNTs show a strong potential of applications in solar collection, infrared sensing and nanogenerators.