We study the low frequency current correlations of an individual single-walled carbon nanotube at liquid He temperature. We have distinguished two physical regimes -- zero dimensional quantum dot and one dimensional quantum wire -- in terms of an energy spacing from the finite tube length in both differential conductance and shot noise measurements. In a one dimensional wire regime, we observed a highly suppressed shot noise from all measured tube devices, suggesting that electron-electron interactions play an important role.
We present theoretical study of shot noise in single wall metallic carbon nanotubes weakly coupled to either nonmagnetic or ferromagnetic leads. Using the real-time diagrammatic technique, we calculate the current, Fano factor and tunnel magnetoresistance in the sequential tunneling regime. It is shown that the differential conductance displays characteristic four-fold periodicity, indicating single-electron charging. Such a periodicity is also visible in tunnel magnetoresistance of the system as well as in the Fano factor. The present studies elucidate the impact of ferromagnetic (vs. nonmagnetic) contacts on the transport characteristics under consideration.
The dynamical conductance of electrically contacted single-walled carbon nanotubes is measured from dc to 10 GHz as a function of source-drain voltage in both the low-field and high-field limits. The ac conductance of the nanotube itself is found to be equal to the dc conductance over the frequency range studied for tubes in both the ballistic and diffusive limit. This clearly demonstrates that nanotubes can carry high-frequency currents at least as well as dc currents over a wide range of operating conditions. Although a detailed theoretical explanation is still lacking, we present a phenomenological model of the ac impedance of a carbon nanotube in the presence of scattering that is consistent with these results.
We report a measurement on quantum capacitance of individual semiconducting and small band gap SWNTs. The observed quantum capacitance is remarkably smaller than that originating from density of states and it implies a strong electron correlation in SWNTs.
AFM manipulation was used to controllably stretch individual metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). We have found that SWNTs can sustain elongations as great as 30% without breaking. Scanned gate microscopy and transport measurements were used to probe the effects of the mechanical strain on the SWNT electronic properties, which revealed a strain-induced increase in intra-tube electronic scattering above a threshold strain of ~5-10%. These findings are consistent with theoretical calculations predicting the onset of plastic deformation and defect formation in carbon nanotubes.
We have contacted single-walled carbon nanotubes after aligning the tubes by the use of surface acoustic waves. The acoustoelectric current has been measured at 4.2 K and a probing of the low-dimensional electronic states by the surface acoustic wave has been detected. By decreasing the acoustic wavelength resulting in an adjustment to the length of the defined carbon nanotube constriction a quantization of the acoustoelectric current has been observed.