Current saturation and electrical breakdown in multiwalled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The limits of high energy transport in multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) particularly on the mechanism and the factors that control the electric breakdown were studied. MWNTs do not fail via electromigration but by a series of sharp, equally sized current steps associated with the destruction of individual nanotube shells consistent with the MWNTs concentric-shell geometry. MWNT showed unaffected in much higher power densities and can reach their full current carrying capacities.