title: Negative differential conductance and hot phonons in suspended nanotube molecular wires.
abstract: Freely suspended metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibit reduced current carrying ability compared to those lying on substrates, and striking negative differential conductance at low electric fields. Theoretical analysis reveals significant self-heating effects including electron scattering by hot nonequilibrium optical phonons. Electron transport characteristics under strong self-heating are exploited for the first time to probe the thermal conductivity of individual SWNTs (approximately 3600 W m-1 K-1 at T=300 K) up to approximately 700 K, and reveal a 1/T dependence expected for umklapp phonon scattering at high temperatures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pop
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mann
authors.forename: Jien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Goodson
authors.forename: Hongjie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dai