Direct current generation due to wave mixing in zigzag carbon nanotubes

S. S. Abukari, S. Y. Mensah, N. G. Mensah, K. A. Dompreh, A. Twum, F. K. A. Allotey

Published 2010-07-11Version 1

Generation of direct current in zigzag carbon nanotubes due to harmonic mixing of two coherent electromagnetic waves is being considered. The electromagnetic waves have commensurate frequencies of omega and two omega. The rectification of the waves at high frequencies is quite smooth whiles at low frequencies there are some fluctuations. The nonohmicity observed in the I-Vcharacteristics is attributed to the nonparabolicity of the electron energy band which is very strong in carbon nanotubes because of high stark component. It is observed that the current falls off faster at lower electric field than the case in superlattice. For omega tau equal to two? the external electric field strength Emax for the observation of negative differential conductivity occurs around 1.03x10e6 V/m which is quite weak. It is interesting to note that the peak of the curve shifts to the left with increasing value of omega tau?