RESEARCH IN THE NEWS
05 July 2004 by dbar05 jul 2004 - In the May volume of Nature, researchers at our Institute reported the first observations of a near perfect electron-hole symmetry in semiconducting carbon nanotubes.
In the May volume of Nature, researchers at our Institute reported the first observations of a near perfect electron-hole symmetry in semiconducting carbon nanotubes.
The work was done in a collaboration between the research groups of Quantum Transport (Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Sami Sapmaz, Leo Kouwenhoven and Herre van der Zant) and Molecular Biophysics (Cees Dekker). For the first time, ambipolar quantum dots have been measured, revealing a near perfect electron-hole symmetry.
This symmetry highlights a unique property of carbon nanotubes, not present in conventional semiconductors: their symmetric band structure. It allows to distinguish between intrinsic properties and spurious ones. The absence of disorder enables the study of individual electrons and holes in one of the most relevant systems for fundamental and technological purposes. The measurements described offer a unique tool to study electron-phonon, electron-electron and exchange interactions. This knowledge is of crucial importance for the future development of nanoscale opto-electronics and quantum information technology.
The full paper can be found in Nature, vol. 429 (27 may 2004) page 389 - 392.
