Phaedon Avouris - Research Activities

Research Activities

Avouris has been a trailblazer in the nanoscience and nanotechnology field. He pioneered the use of scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy to study surface chemistry on the atomic scale, and establish the relation between chemical reactivity and local electronic structure. He demonstrated device-like behavior on the atomic scale, observed electron confinement and interference effects at surfaces. He also manipulated covalently bonded atoms with atomic precision. More recently, Avouris has made critical discoveries, both experimental and theoretical, on the electronics and photonics of carbon nanotubes (CNT) and graphene, and has laid the foundations of future carbon-based nanotechnology.

In 1998 Avouris’ team at IBM independently demonstrated the very first molecular transistor based on a single CNT. Subsequently, he optimized the design and performance of the CNT field-effect transistors, enabling them to outperform silicon devices. Avouris and co-workers then produced the first CNT logic-gates and integrated circuits based on CNTs. They showed that transport in CNTs is controlled by Schottky barriers, found ways to dope CNTs, and analyzed the role of inelastic phonon scattering. Avouris and his group demonstrated, for the first time, electrically generated light emission and photoconductivity from CNTs, and analyzed theoretically the properties of CNT excitons. He studied in detail the mechanisms of photo- and current-induced excitation of these one-dimensional systems and opened up the possibility of a unified electronic and optoelectronic technology based on the same carbon materials.