Acoustoelectric Effect in Fluorinated Carbon Nanotube in the Absence of External Electric Field

Acoustoelectric effect (AE) in a non-degenerate Fluorine modified single walled carbon nanotube (FSWCNT) semiconductor is studied theoretically using the Boltzmann’s transport equation. The study is done in the hypersound regime i.e. , where q is the acoustic phonon wavenumber and is the electron mean free path. The results obtained are compared with that of undoped single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT). The AE current density for FSWCNT is observed to be four orders of magnitude smaller than that of undoped SWCNT with increasing temperature, that is . This is because the electron-phonon interactions in SWCNT are stronger than FSWCNT. Thus, there are more intra-mini-band electrons interacting with the acoustic phonons to generate a higher AE current in SWCNT than in FSWCNT. This has been observed experimentally, where the electrical resistance of FSWCNT is higher than pristine SWCNT i.e. . The study shows the potential for FSWCNT as an ultrasound current source density imaging (UCSDI) and AE hydrophone material. However, FSWCNT offers the potential for room temperature applications of acoustoelectric device but other techniques are needed to reduce the resistance.