We show that the self-consistent dynamics of both phonons and electrons is the necessary ingredient for the reliable description of the hot phonons generation during electron transport in metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). We solve the coupled Boltzmann transport equations to determine in a consistent way the current vs. voltage (IV) curve and the phonon occupation in metallic SWNTs which are lying on a substrate. We find a good agreement with measured IV curves and we determine an optical phonon occupation which corresponds to an effective temperature of several thousands K (hot phonons), for the voltages typically used in experiments. We show that the high-bias resistivity strongly depends on the optical phonon thermalization time. This implies that a drastic improvement of metallic nanotubes performances can be achieved by increasing the coupling of the optical phonons with a thermalization source.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0603046,
title = {Coupled dynamics of electrons and phonons in metallic nanotubes: current saturation from hot phonons generation},
author = {Michele Lazzeri and Francesco Mauri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0603046},
year = {2009}
}