Disorder-induced enhancement of conductance in doped nanowires

A new mechanism is proposed to explain the enhancement of conductance in doped nanowires. It is shown that the anomalous enhancement of conductance is due to surface doping. The conductance in doped nanowires increases with dopant concentration, which is qualitatively consistent with the existing experimental results. In addition, the I-V curves are linear and thus suggest that the metal electrodes make ohmic contacts to the shell-doped nanowires. The electric current increases with wire diameter (D) and decreases exponentially with wire length (L). Therefore, the doped nanowires have potential application in nanoscale electronic and optoelectronic devices.