“Three-Dimensional Imaging of Carbon Nanotubes Deformed by Metal Islands”,

Judy J. Cha, M. Weyland, J.-F. Briere, I. P. Daykov, T. A. Arias, and D. A. Muller,

Nano Letters 7 3770 -3773 (2007).

Three-dimensional reconstruction of gold
particles on a nanotube.

We report the first direct three-dimensional observations of the buried interface between nanotubes and metal contacts and show that nanotubes can be deformed by the contacts, especially when the metals island rather than wet to nanotubes. Because deforming a nanotube can alter its electronic properties, the islanding metal contacts can introduce additional resistance terms beyond the already present Schottky barrier. The popular contact metal, palladium, lies on the margin between wetting and islanding, suggesting a strategy to improve the contact resistance by alloying.