2010/11/30 by Dario Bercioux, D. Bercioux, Gilles Buchs +5 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Graphene research and applications #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.83.165439
published as Phys. Rev. B 83, 165439 (2011) · http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.165439
openalex publication_date 2011/04/25 · arxiv created 2011/04/27 · arxiv updated 2011/04/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a detailed comparison between theoretical predictions on electron scattering processes in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes with defects and experimental data obtained by scanning tunneling spectroscopy of Ar+ irradiated nanotubes. To this purpose, we first develop a formalism for studying quantum transport properties of defected nanotubes in the presence of source and drain contacts and a scanning tunneling microscopy tip. The formalism is based on a field theoretical approach describing low-energy electrons. We account for the lack of translational invariance induced by defects within the so-called extended k\ifmmode⋅\else\textperiodcentered\fip approximation, which allows for multicomponent scattering with new scattering channels that are associated with exchanged momenta larger than the difference between the K points of the nanotube. The theoretical model reproduces the features of the particle-in-a-box-like states observed experimentally. Further, the comparison between theoretical and experimental Fourier-transformed local density of states maps yields clear signatures for intervalley and intravalley electron scattering processes depending on the tube chirality.