No Arabic abstract
We report a first principles analysis of electronic transport characteristics for (n,n) carbon nanotube bundles. When n is not a multiple of 3, inter-tube coupling causes universal conductance suppression near Fermi level regardless of the rotational arrangement of individual tubes. However, when n is a multiple of 3, the bundles exhibit a diversified conductance dependence on the orientation details of the constituent tubes. The total energy of the bundle is also sensitive to the orientation arrangement only when n is a multiple of 3. All the transport properties and band structures can be well understood from the symmetry consideration of whether the rotational symmetry of the individual tubes is commensurate with that of the bundle.
We report on experiments conducted on single walled carbon nanotube bundles aligned in chains and connected through a natural contact barrier. The dependence upon the temperature of the transport properties is investigated for samples having different characteristics. Starting from two bundles separated by one barrier deposited over four contact probes, we extend the study of the transport properties to samples formed by chains of several bundles. The systematic analysis of the properties of these aggregates shows the existence of two conduction regimes in the barrier. We show that an electrical circuit taking into account serial and parallel combinations of voltages generated at the junctions between bundles models the samples consistently.
Analytic results for the conductance of a molecular wire attached to mesoscopic tubule leads are obtained. They permit to study linear transport in presence of low dimensional leads in the whole range of parameters. In particular contact effects can be addressed in detail. By focusing on the specificity of the lead-wire contact, we show that the geometry of this hybrid system supports a mechanism of channel selection, which is a distinctive hallmark of the mesoscopic nature of the electrodes.
The effect of a N2 impurity on the radial thermal expansion coefficient (ar) of single-walled carbon nanotube bundles has been investigated in the temperature interval 2.2 - 43 K by the dilatometric method. Saturation of nanotube bundles with N2 caused a sharp increase in the positive magnitudes of ar in the whole range of temperatures used and a very high and wide maximum in the thermal expansion coefficient (ar)(T) at T about 28 K. The low temperature desorption of the impurity from the N2-saturated powder of bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes with open and closed ends has been investigated.
Helium atoms are strongly attracted to the interstitial channels within a bundle of carbon nanotubes. The strong corrugation of the axial potential within a channel can produce a lattice gas system where the weak mutual attraction between atoms in neighboring channels of a bundle induces condensation into a remarkably anisotropic phase with very low binding energy. We estimate the binding energy and critical temperature for 4He in this novel quasi-one-dimensional condensed state. At low temperatures, the specific heat of the adsorbate phase (fewer than 2% of the total number of atoms) greatly exceeds that of the host material.
The effect of a normal H2 impurity upon the radial thermal expansion (Ar) of SWNT bundles has been investigated in the interval T = 2.2-27 K using the dilatometric method. It is found that H2 saturation of SWNT bundles causes a shift of the temperature interval of the negative thermal expansion towards lower (as compared to pure CNTs) temperatures and a sharp increase in the magnitude of (Ar) in the whole range of temperatures investigated. The low temperature desorption of H2 from a powder consisting of bundles of SWNTs, open and closed at the ends, has been investigated.