Highly efficient gating and doping of carbon nanotubes with polymer electrolytes

Carbon nanotube transistors exhibiting high on-state conductance, carrier mobilities, and on-off ratios are achieved using polymer electrolytes as gate media. Nearly ideal gate efficiencies allow operation at very small voltages without the commonly observed problem of hysteresis in back-gated nanotube and nanowire transistors. By varying the electron donating and accepting ability of the chemical groups of the host polymer, unipolar p or n devices or ambipolar transistors that are stable at room temperature in air are also shown to be easily fabricated. With simple methods such as spin casting of polymer films, high-performance polymer electrolyte-gated nanotube transistors may provide useful components for and an alternative route to developing hybrid electronics.