Gas sensors have been fabricated from multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) coated with a thin tin oxide layer, and have been used to detect oxidizing and reducing gases down to a ppm level. The barriers between the tin oxide nanocrystal grains on the MWNTs dominate the sensor resistance in different gases, and the conducting carriers in the MWNTs have a low resistance, which make the resistance of the sensors much lower than that of SnO2 nanobelt sensors. The resistance is 130kΩ in air, 230kΩ in 2ppm NO2, and 2.8MΩ in 50ppm NO2, so that impedance matching with amplifying circuits can be easily achieved.

Stable field emission is realized from well-separated tetrapod-like ZnO nanostructures with high purity. The ZnO nanostructures are painted on a highly doped silicon substrate covered by a Au layer with a thickness of 300nm. An emission current density of 18mA∕cm2 is obtained and degradation was not observed over a three day period. The fluctuations of the emission current are less than 2%. These experimental results indicate that tetrapod-like ZnO nanostructures are promising materials as cold cathodes for mass production.

We report on field emission from SnO2 nanobelt arrays with the length of about 90 μm grown on silicon substrates. The turn-on field of the nanobelt arrays at the current density of 1μA∕cm2, is 4.5, 3.0, 2.4, and 2.3V∕μm as the distance between anode and cathode (d) is 0.1, 0.2, 0.35, and 0.5 mm, respectively. The current density rapidly reaches 2.1mA∕cm2 at the electrical field of 4.4V∕μm at d=0.35mm. The current density is higher than or comparable to those of the carbon nanotubes and other one-dimensional nanostructured materials. We also discuss the mechanism of high current densities and estimate the enhancement factor according to both the Fowler–Nordheim law and the reported model on micrometer-long of carbon nanotubes.

We have measured shot noise in single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) with good contacts at 4.2 K at low frequencies (f = 600 − 850 MHz). We find a strong modulation of shot noise over the Fabry-Perot pattern; in terms of differential Fano factor the variation ranges over 0.4 -1.2. The shot noise variation, in combination with differential conductance, is analyzed using two (spin-degenerate) modes with different, energy-dependent transmission coefficients. No power law dependence of shot noise, as expected for Luttinger liquids, was found in our measurements.

Transport properties of a single multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) have been investigated in vacuum at room temperature. The MWNTs show the large current carrying capacity at large bias due to the ballistic transport. The conductance for a single MWNT around zero bias is 0.4G0, and increases almost linearly with the applied voltage until it reaches its acmes. Being the signature of the ballistic transport for MWNTs, the conductance acmes are observed at the bias of ±5.8 V equal to ±2γ0/e, where γ0 is the π bonding energy for carbon nanotubes. Our calculation shows a similar curve to our experimental results, which further indicates the ballistic transport through the single MWNT.