Electronic properties of double-layer carbon nanotubes

The electronic spectra for double-wall zigzag and armchair nanotubes are found. The influence of nanotube curvatures on the electronic spectra is also calculated. Our finding that the outer shell is hole doped by the inner shell is in the difference between Fermi levels of individual shells which originate from the different hybridization of π orbital. The shift and rotation of the inner nanotube with respect to the outer nanotube are investigated. We found stable semimetal characteristics of the armchair DWNTs in regard of the shift and rotation of the inner nanotube. We predict the shift of k_F towards the bigger wave vectors with decreasing of the radius of the armchair nanotube.     

Electronic properties of multi-defected zigzag carbon nanotubes

Electronic properties of multi-defected zigzag single-walled carbon nanotubes are investigated by use of the tight-binding Green's function method. The Stone-Wales defects and the vacancies are considered. We find that the conductance sensitively depends on the realistic defect configurations for the metallic zigzag carbon nanotubes. Interestingly, the electronic transport properties of the nanotubes with three vacancies can be considered as the sum effect of two double-vacancies, while those with Stone-Wal...     

Electronic transport properties of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes

We have calculated the differential conductance of metallic carbon nanotubes by the scatter matrix methon.It is found that the differential conductance of metallic nanotube-based devices oscillates as a function of the bias voltage between the two leads and the gate voltage.Oscillation period T is directly proportional to the reciprocal of nanotube length.In addition,we found that electronic transport properties are sensitive to variation of the length of the nanotube.     

Electronic structures and transport properties of sulfurized carbon nanotubes

The electronic and transport properties of side-walled sulfurized (8, 0) zigzag carbon nanotube were investigated by using density functional theory coupled with a non-equilibrium Green function approach. It is found that the adsorption of the sulfur chains largely reduces the bandgap of the semiconducting (8, 0) carbon nanotube, even changing it into a metallic one. More importantly, the transmission eigenstates around the Fermi level are contributed by not only the sulfur chains but also the complex system made of the sulfur chains and the single-walled carbon nanotube. Our results provide a method to improve the conductivity and utilization rate of the surface in the electrodes of supercapacitor which are made of the carbon nanotubes.     

Electronic properties of telescoping carbon nanotubes under external fields

In this work, we use the tight-binding model to study the low-energy electronic properties of telescoping double-walled carbon nanotubes subject to the influences of a transverse electric field and a parallel magnetic field. The state energy and energy spacings are found to oscillate significantly with the overlapping length. External fields would modify the state energies, alter the energy gaps, and destroy the state degeneracy. Complete energy gap modulations can be accomplished either by varying the overlapping length, or by applying an electric field or a magnetic field. The variations of state energies with the external fields will be directly reflected in the density of states. The numbers, heights, and frequencies of the density of states peaks are strongly dependent on the external fields.     

Electronic properties of alkali-metal intercalated single walled carbon nanotubes

We present a comparative study of the electronic properties of sodium and lithium intercalated single walled carbon nanotubes in a bucky paper sample by electron energy loss spectroscopy and photoemission spectroscopy. We have found that at room temperature both sodium and lithium rapidly diffuse into the bulk of the sample while different magnitudes of charge transfer from Na and Li to the nanotube bundles have been observed. The maximum observed displacement of the Fermi level is almost the same for both alkali although Na and Li induce quite different changes in the carbon nanotube electronic structure. We interpret our results as a more covalent character of the Li-carbon nanotube interaction with respect to the ionic character of the Na-carbon nanotube interaction; the localization of the charge density along the Li-C bond is responsible for an intertube interaction within the carbon nanotube ropes.     

Electronic and elastic properties of expanded radialenes carbon nanotubes

The series of expanded radialenes of molecular formulae C_2n H _n and C_3n H _n are obtained by inserting acetylene or diacetylene groups between each pair of methylene units of radialenes C _n H _n . This paper reports on the new theoretical investigation of electronic and elastic properties of some carbon nanotubes based on expanded radialenes with different diameters and with the armchair and zigzag edges Using the ABINIT software package, which is based on the density functional theory (DFT), we found that all studied carbon nanotubes based on expanded radialenes possess metallic behavior. Also, the calculations show that the elastic properties of the nanotubes depend on the form of the rolling up (armchair (m,m) or zigzag (m,0)). The Young’s modulus is slightly smaller for the (m,0) nanotubes and a bit larger for (m,m) nanotubes.     

Electronic transport properties of junctions between carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons

Using the tight-binding model and Green’s function method, we studied the electronic transport of four kinds of nanotube-graphene junctions. The results show the transport properties depend on both types of the carbon nanotube and graphene nanoribbon, metal or semiconducting. Moreover, the defect at the nanotube-graphene interface did not affect the conductance of the whole system at the Fermi level. In the double junction of nanotube/nanoribbon/nanotube, quasibound states are found, which cause antiresonance and result in conductance dips.     

低偏压下单层碳纳米管的输运特征

系统地计算了各种手性碳纳米管最低导带的电子速度和有效质量的变化规律,在此基础上推断手性碳纳米管低偏压下的输运特征,计算表明:在低偏压电子输运时,同一系列(手性角相同)的各种手性金属碳纳米管的输运性质相同,与管径无关,但不同系列的手性金属碳纳米管的输运性质有明显区别;而同一系列的各种手性半导体型碳纳米管的输运性质有一定差异,但不同系列的手性半导体型碳纳米管的输运性质有着显著差异.这一结果说明:碳纳米管在低偏压下的输运特征与系列有着密切的关系,手性角是决定各种碳纳米管在低偏压下具有不同输运性质的最关键的几何参 关键词： 碳纳米管 手性角 电子速度 有效质量     

Electronic structure of deformed carbon nanotubes

Electronic structure of deformed carbon nanotubes varies widely depending on their chirality and deformation mode. We present a framework to analyze these variations by quantifying the dispersion relation and density of states. The theory is based on the Huckel tight-binding model and confirmed by four orbital tight-binding simulations of nanotubes under stretching, compression, torsion, and bending. It unriddles and unifies previous band gap studies and predicts the shifting, merging, and splitting of Van Hove singularities in the density of state, and the zigzag pattern of band gap change with strains. Possible applications to nanotube devices and spectroscopy research are also presented.     

Electronic transport in Y-junction carbon nanotubes

Electronic transport measurements were performed on Y-junction carbon nanotubes. These novel junctions contain a large diameter tube branched into smaller ones. Independent measurements using good quality contacts on both individual Y junctions and many in parallel show intrinsic nonlinear transport and reproducible rectifying behavior at room temperature. The results were modeled using classic interface physics for a junction with an abrupt change in band gap due to the change in tube diameter. These Y-junction tubes represent new heterojunctions for nanoelectronics.     

Mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes

A variety of outstanding experimental results on the elucidation of the elastic properties of carbon nanotubes are fast appearing. These are based mainly on the techniques of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) to determine the Young’s moduli of single-wall nanotube bundles and multi-walled nanotubes, prepared by a number of methods. These results are confirming the theoretical predictions that carbon nanotubes have high strength plus extraordinary flexibility and resilience. As well as summarising the most notable achievements of theory and experiment in the last few years, this paper explains the properties of nanotubes in the wider context of materials science and highlights the contribution of our research group in this rapidly expanding field. A deeper understanding of the relationship between the structural order of the nanotubes and their mechanical properties will be necessary for the development of carbon-nanotube-based composites. Our research to date illustrates a qualitative relationship between the Young’s modulus of a nanotube and the amount of disorder in the atomic structure of the walls. Other exciting results indicate that composites will benefit from the exceptional mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes, but that the major outstanding problem of load transfer efficiency must be overcome before suitable engineering materials can be produced. Received: 17 May 1999 / Accepted: 18 May 1999 / Published online: 29 July 1999     

Superconducting properties of carbon nanotubes

Metallic single wall carbon nanotubes have attracted much interest as 1D quantum wires combining a low carrier density and a high mobility. It was believed for a long time that low temperature transport was exclusively dominated by the existence of unscreened Coulomb interactions leading to an insulating behavior at low temperature. However experiments have also shown evidence of superconductivity in carbon nanotubes. We distinguish two fundamentally different physical situations. When carbon nanotubes are connected to superconducting electrodes, they exhibit proximity induced superconductivity with supercurrents which strongly depend on the transmission of the electrodes. On the other hand intrinsic superconductivity was also observed in suspended ropes of carbon nanotubes and recently in doped individual tubes. These experiments indicate the presence of attractive interactions in carbon nanotubes which overcome Coulomb repulsion at low temperature, and enables investigation of superconductivity in a 1D limit never explored before. To cite this article: M. Ferrier et al., C. R. Physique 10 (2009).     

Electronic transport through superlattice-like disordered carbon nanotubes

We introduce a simple method for investigating electronic transport in pure and superlattice-like disordered carbon nanotubes (SDCNTs). This model reduces the numerical calculation time and enables us to use the transfer matrix method to investigate transport in a carbon nanotube (CNT). Therefore, we consider an SDCNT device attached to metallic CNT leads, taking into account the disorder effect. Our calculations are based on the tight-binding model and the transfer matrix method. We concentrate on the localization length and density of sates (DOS) for various strengths of disorder. Our numerical results show a nearly steplike dependence of the localization length on energy at small disorder concentration. By controlling the disorder concentration and wire length, this kind of system can explain the extended states from the localized states. Our results can serve as a base for developments in designing nano-electronic devices.     

Electronic structure of Pd nanoparticles on carbon nanotubes

The effect of the oxygen plasma treatment on the electronic states of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is analyzed by X-ray photoemission measurements (XPS) and UPS, both using synchrotron radiation. It is found that the plasma treatment effectively grafts oxygen at the CNT-surface. Thereafter, the interaction between evaporated Pd and pristine or oxygen plasma-treated MWCNTs is investigated. Pd is found to nucleate at defective sites, whether initially present or introduced by oxygen plasma treatment. The plasma treatment induced a uniform dispersion of Pd clusters at the CNT-surface. The absence of additional features in the Pd 3d and C 1s core levels spectra testifies that no Pd-C bond is formed. The shift of the Pd 3d core level towards high-binding energy for the smallest clusters is attributed to the Coulomb energy of the charged final state.     

Electronic transport properties of single-wall boron nanotubes

Electronic transport properties of single-wall boron nanotube(BNT) with different chiralities, diameters, some of which are encapsulated with silicon, germanium, and boron nanowires are theoretically studied. The results indicate that the zigzag(3, 3) BNT has more electronic transmission channels than the armchair(5, 0) BNT because of its unique structure distortion. Nanowires encapsulated in the BNT can enhance the conductance of the BNT to some extent by providing a significant electronic transmission channel to the BNT. The effect of the structure of nanowires and the diameter of BNTs on the transport properties has also been discussed. The results of this paper can enrich the knowledge of the electron transport of the BNT and provide theoretical guidance for subsequent experimental study.