Current--voltage characteristics of an individual helical CdS nanowire rope

This paper studies the electronic transport in an individual helically twisted CdS nanowire rope, on which platinum microleads are attached by focused-ion beam deposition. The current--voltage (I-V) characteristics are nonlinear from 300 down to 60 K. Some step-like structures in the I-V curves and oscillation peaks in the differential conductance (dI/dV-V) curves have been observed even at room temperature. It proposes that the observed behaviour can be attributed to Coulomb-blockade transport in the one-dimensional CdS nanowires with diameters of 6--10 nm.