Putting spin into carbon nanoelectronics
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Materials
Abstract
Single walled carbon nanotubes are proving themselves to be remarkable candidates for disruptive nanoelectronic devices. Electrons can flow through them ballistically, which means that they travel without being scattered by features in the material of the nanotube. It is possible to make transistors with single walled nanotubes with both electron and hole conductors, thus providing components for complete logic circuits. It is even possible to make transistors which work with a change of only a single electron in the active region. All of this could be very significant for future electronics applications, but that would be only the beginning, because these devices use only the charge on the electron. There is another secret weapon which can be used, in the form of the electron spin.The electron spin can be thought of as a tiny magnet, which can point in one of two directions (often referred to as up and down). The new field of electronics which this opens up already has a name, spintronics, and its own Nobel Prize Winners. The biggest current application of spintronics is in the heads for reading data on hard discs in computers, revolutionizing this multibillion dollar industry. Magnetic random access memory is now being made and sold, with the promise of ever higher access speeds. The search is on for new materials systems which can be used for spintronic devices, which may in turn be exploited in new applications. New effects are being discovered all the time. For example, if you apply different temperatures to the two ends of a metallic magnet, a current of electron spins can flow.Our vision is to put spin into carbon nanoelectronics. If we can do this, we may be able to add a whole new capability to what is already possible with nanotube transistors. For this purpose we shall use other carbon materials, even smaller than nanotubes, in the form of cages called fullerene molecules (also known as Bucky balls). These molecules can each contain one or more atoms which carry a resulting electron spin. They can be inserted into single walled nanotubes, and the resulting structures are sometimes called peapods, because that is what they look like in an electron microscope. Peapods provide an ideal way to put spin into nanotubes.In our research programme, we shall fabricate peapod transistors, and look at them by high resolution transmission electron microscopy under conditions which minimise the damage to the samples. In this way we shall be able to see with atomic resolution the very piece of material which is active in the device. We shall measure the current through the transistor while we vary the magnetic field and the temperature, and look for effects which may be very sensitive to one or other of these. We shall apply microwave radiation, and detect the effect on electrical conductance as we sweep the magnetic field through the spin resonance. Finally we shall perform controlled experiments to measure electrically the direction of the spin.Although these are fundamental experiments, our hope is that they will lead to practical applications. These may be through the effects of collective excitations, for applications such as nanoelectronic circuits and sensors, or they may be through direct control of the spin states, for more revolutionary devices such as quantum logic devices, quantum memories and perhaps even eventually quantum computing.
Publications
Allen CS
(2012)
The identification of inner tube defects in double-wall carbon nanotubes.
in Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Allen CS
(2011)
Two-dimensional coalescence dynamics of encapsulated metallofullerenes in carbon nanotubes.
in ACS nano
Allen CS
(2014)
Optically enhanced charge transfer between C60 and single-wall carbon nanotubes in hybrid electronic devices.
in Nanoscale
Almutlaq N
(2016)
Identification of a positive-Seebeck-coefficient exohedral fullerene.
in Nanoscale
Ares N
(2016)
Sensitive Radio-Frequency Measurements of a Quantum Dot by Tuning to Perfect Impedance Matching
in Physical Review Applied
Ares N
(2016)
Resonant Optomechanics with a Vibrating Carbon Nanotube and a Radio-Frequency Cavity.
in Physical review letters
Famili M
(2017)
Toward High Thermoelectric Performance of Thiophene and Ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) Molecular Wires
in Advanced Functional Materials
Farrington B
(2011)
Photostability of N@C 60 in Common Solvents
in ECS Transactions
Fruchtman A
(2015)
Quantum dynamics in a tiered non-Markovian environment
in New Journal of Physics
Gehring P
(2016)
Quantum Interference in Graphene Nanoconstrictions.
in Nano letters
Gehring P
(2017)
Distinguishing Lead and Molecule States in Graphene-Based Single-Electron Transistors.
in ACS nano
Gehring P
(2017)
Field-Effect Control of Graphene-Fullerene Thermoelectric Nanodevices
in Nano Letters
Giavaras G
(2010)
Spin detection at elevated temperatures using a driven double quantum dot
in Physical Review B
Gil-RamÃrez G
(2018)
Distance Measurement of a Noncovalently Bound Y@C82 Pair with Double Electron Electron Resonance Spectroscopy.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Greplova E
(2017)
Conditioned spin and charge dynamics of a single-electron quantum dot
in Physical Review A
Harding RT
(2017)
Spin Resonance Clock Transition of the Endohedral Fullerene ^{15}N@C_{60}.
in Physical review letters
Higgins KD
(2014)
Superabsorption of light via quantum engineering.
in Nature communications
Kelber JB
(2015)
Synthesis and investigation of donor-porphyrin-acceptor triads with long-lived photo-induced charge-separate states.
in Chemical science
Kim H
(2015)
Resilient High Catalytic Performance of Platinum Nanocatalysts with Porous Graphene Envelope.
in ACS nano
Kincer M
(2015)
Shear alignment of fullerenes in nanotubular supramolecular complexes
in Polymer
Lambert C
(2016)
Quantum-interference-enhanced thermoelectricity in single molecules and molecular films
in Comptes Rendus Physique
Lau CS
(2016)
Redox-Dependent Franck-Condon Blockade and Avalanche Transport in a Graphene-Fullerene Single-Molecule Transistor.
in Nano letters
Li Y
(2016)
Interference-based molecular transistors.
in Scientific reports
Li Y
(2017)
Double quantum dot memristor
in Physical Review B
Liu G
(2011)
Photochemical stability of N@C60 and its pyrrolidine derivatives
in Chemical Physics Letters
Luo J
(2011)
Ultralow secondary electron emission of graphene.
in ACS nano
Mavalankar A
(2016)
Photon-assisted tunneling and charge dephasing in a carbon nanotube double quantum dot
in Physical Review B
Mergenthaler M
(2017)
Strong Coupling of Microwave Photons to Antiferromagnetic Fluctuations in an Organic Magnet.
in Physical review letters
Mirza M
(2017)
One dimensional transport in silicon nanowire junction-less field effect transistors
in Scientific Reports
Pei T
(2017)
Hyperfine and Spin-Orbit Coupling Effects on Decay of Spin-Valley States in a Carbon Nanotube.
in Physical review letters
Puczkarski P
(2015)
Three-terminal graphene single-electron transistor fabricated using feedback-controlled electroburning
in Applied Physics Letters
Ramsay AJ
(2010)
Damping of exciton Rabi rotations by acoustic phonons in optically excited InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots.
in Physical review letters
Richert S
(2017)
On the Influence of the Bridge on Triplet State Delocalization in Linear Porphyrin Oligomers.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Robertson AW
(2014)
The role of the bridging atom in stabilizing odd numbered graphene vacancies.
in Nano letters
Robertson AW
(2013)
Dynamics of single Fe atoms in graphene vacancies.
in Nano letters
Robertson AW
(2014)
Stability and dynamics of the tetravacancy in graphene.
in Nano letters
Robertson AW
(2013)
Structural reconstruction of the graphene monovacancy.
in ACS nano
Robertson AW
(2012)
Spatial control of defect creation in graphene at the nanoscale.
in Nature communications
Robertson AW
(2015)
Partial Dislocations in Graphene and Their Atomic Level Migration Dynamics.
in Nano letters
Robertson AW
(2014)
Inflating graphene with atomic scale blisters.
in Nano letters
Sadeghi H
(2017)
Robust Molecular Anchoring to Graphene Electrodes.
in Nano letters
Sadeghi H
(2016)
Cross-plane enhanced thermoelectricity and phonon suppression in graphene/MoS 2 van der Waals heterostructures
in 2D Materials
Sangtarash S
(2016)
Exploring quantum interference in heteroatom-substituted graphene-like molecules.
in Nanoscale
Schaffry M
(2010)
Quantum metrology with molecular ensembles
in Physical Review A
Schaffry M
(2011)
Creating nuclear spin entanglement using an optical degree of freedom
in Physical Review A
Schaffry M
(2010)
Entangling remote nuclear spins linked by a chromophore.
in Physical review letters
Sowa J
(2017)
Vibrational effects in charge transport through a molecular double quantum dot
in Physical Review B
Sowa JK
(2017)
Environment-assisted quantum transport through single-molecule junctions.
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Wu YA
(2012)
Large single crystals of graphene on melted copper using chemical vapor deposition.
in ACS nano
Description | Single nanotube quantum devices |
Exploitation Route | Carbon-based quantum technologies |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
URL | http://andrewbriggs.org |
Description | Quantum of Spin |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The Quantum of Spin exhibit was the largest and among the most successful of the many exhibits at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in 2012. Over the course of 1 week from 3 to 8 July, our team explained their research to over ten thousand visitors. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
URL | http://sse.royalsociety.org/2012/exhibits/ |