Robust nanosized transistor effect in fullerene-tube heterostructure

A fullerene-tube heterostructure should produce a compact resonant-tunnelin g system, when a nanometer section of non-conducting nanotube separates a p air of metallic-nanotubes leads. Adding a set of metal contacts and gates c ompletes our proposal for a robust current switch and transistor with a nan osized feature size. The electrostatic gates provide a crisp resonance-leve l control for the orbitals trapped in the nonconducting barrier and can thu s selectively enable/inhibit a strong resonant-tunneling current. A conserv ing Green-function study documents that the transistor effect is robust at room temperature and in the presence of a strong inelastic scattering. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.