Modeling and Control of Electrical Breakdown Process of Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been found as the promising semiconducting material for the future high performance nanoelectronics. As an important property for applications of a semiconductor, the band gap of a multi-walled CNT is related to its diameter. The capability of adjusting the material band gap is extremely important in sensor and electronics manufacturing. This paper discusses a real-time control method for the selective carbon shell breakdown process to tailor the CNT’s band structure. The control method is designed based on the quantum state space model that describes the electron transport in the CNT. The state space anomaly during breakdown process can be observed using robust fault diagnosis technique by combining analytical approach and heuristic approach. The experimental results reported in this paper verify the theoretical findings. As a result, a MWCNT can be converted into a semiconducting material with pre-determined band gap.