Improvements in carbon based conductors can impact the development of a variety of new electronic and optoelectronic devices, and may offer significant weight savings (over copper), important in mass sensitive applications such as aircraft design. Published experimental work indicates that chemical doping offers the most likely route to high specific conductivity carbon-based wiring. Interpretation of the test data on potassium tetrabromoaurate, the most successful carbon nanotube dopant tested to date, is complicated by the possibility that the nominal dopant molecule and the ‘in situ’ configuration of the dopant species may differ, due to disassociation, ionization, or other chemical effects. Ab initio modeling of KAuBr₄ doping, in both molecular and disassociated forms, allows for the theoretical isolation of molecular, molecular fragment, and atomic dopant effects on metallic and semiconducting tubes, as a function of dopant concentration. The modeling results suggest that the dopant is most effective in a disassociated form, but that KAuBr₄ doping is not likely to produce high specific conductivity CNT wiring.

碳基导体的改进会影响各种新型电子和光电设备的开发，并且可能显着减轻重量（超过铜），这在诸如飞机设计之类的对质量敏感的应用中很重要。已发表的实验工作表明，化学掺杂为高比电导率的碳基布线提供了最可能的途径。迄今为止，最成功的碳纳米管掺杂剂四溴金酸钾的测试数据的解释由于标称的掺杂剂分子和掺杂剂种类的“原位”构型可能因解离，电离或离子化而不同而变得复杂。其他化学作用。KAuBr _4的从头开始建模无论是分子形式还是非缔合形式的掺杂，都可以从理论上分离出分子，分子片段和原子对金属和半导体管的掺杂效应，这是掺杂剂浓度的函数。建模结果表明，掺杂剂以解离形式最有效，但是KAuBr ₄掺杂不太可能产生高比电导率的CNT布线。