2001/02/06 by Xin Zhou, Hu Chen, Zhou, Xin +3
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0102094
5 pages, 5 eps figures
arxiv created 2001/02/06 · openalex publication_date 2001/02/06 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A simple method to calculate the static electric polarization of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) is obtained within the second-order perturbation approximation. The results are in agreement with the previous calculation within the random-phase approximation. We also find that the low energy electronic band structure of SWNT can be affected by an external electric field perpendicular to the axis of the tube. The field-induced energy gap shows strong dependence on the electric field and the size of the tubes, and a metal-insulator transition is predicted for all (n, n) tubes. Universal scaling is found for the gap as function of the electric field and the radius of SWNTs. The fact that the external field required to induce a 0.1 \rm eV gap in SWNTs can be reached under the currently available experimental conditions indicates a possibility of further applying nanotubes to electric signal-controlled nanoscale switching devices.