Molecular dynamics simulations of nonvolatile carbon nanotube shuttle memory

Abstract

We propose a novel carbon-nanotube (CNT)-based nonvolatile memory, which can serve as a key building block for molecular-scale computers and perform molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the dynamic operations of a double-walled CNT memory. We find that the most important physical characteristics of the proposed nanometer-scale memory device are the bi-stability achieved by both the CNT inter-wall vdn der Waals interaction and CNT-metal binding energies and the reversibility by electrostatic attractive forces. Since the CNT shuttle can have a high kinetic energy during the transition, the dynamical collisions between the CNT and the metal electrodes are very important factors to be considered for design of the electrostatically telescoping CNT memory. The long collision time and the several rebounds cause a delay of the state transition.