Size effect of quantum conductance in carbon nanotube Y-Junctions

This paper studies the quantum conductance properties of three-terminated carbon nanotube Y-junctions, which are built by connecting three (5,5) single-walled carbon nanotubes. The results show that the quantum conductance at the Fermi energy oscillates periodically with the junction's size, and the number of oscillating periodic layers is 3 which is the same as that in the two terminated $(10,0)/m(5,5)/(10,0)$ junctions. Moreover, this Y-junction with different size exhibits obvious different distribution of electron current in the two drain branches, called shunt valve effect of electronic current. Thus the degree of this effect can be controlled and modulated directly by constructing the three branches' sizes or the distribution of defect. The results show in detail that the difference between the two drain currents can be up to two times for some constructions with special sizes. In addition, the uniform distribution of defects in the Y-junction leads to lower quantum conductance than that of other defect configurations.