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Published July 24, 2008 | public
Journal Article

Improving Contact Resistance at the Nanotube−Cu Electrode Interface Using Molecular Anchors

Abstract

It is anticipated that future nanoelectronic devices will utilize carbon nanotubes (CNT) and/or single graphene sheets (SGS) as the low-level on-chip interconnects or functional elements. Here we address the contact resistance of Cu for higher level on-chip interconnects with CNT or SGS elements. We use first-principles quantum mechanical (QM) density functional and matrix Green's function methods to show that perfect Cu−SGS contact has a contact resistance of 16.3 MΩ for a one square nanometer contact. Then we analyzed possible improvements in contact resistance through incorporation of simple functional groups such as aryl (−C_6H_4−), acetylene (−CC−), carboxyl (−COO−), and amide (−CONH−), on CNT. We find that all four anchors enhance the interfacial mechanical stabilities and electrical conductivity. The best scenario is −COOH functionalized CNT which reduces the contact resistance to the Cu by a factor of 275 and increases the mechanical stability by 26 times.

Additional Information

© 2008 American Chemical Society. Received: March 12, 2008; Revised Manuscript Received: April 17, 2008. Publication Date (Web): June 27, 2008. We thank Dr. Jamil Tahir-Kheli for helpful discussions. This work was supported partially by Intel Components Research (Kevin O'Brien, Florian Gstrein, and James Blackwell) and by the National Science Foundation (CCF-0524490 and CTS-0608889). The computer systems used in this research were provided by ARO-DURIP and ONR-DURIP. Additional support for the MSC was provided by ONR, ARO, DOE, NIH, Chevron, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Pfizer, Allozyne, Nissan, Dow-Corning, DuPont, and MARCO-FENA.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023