Transport properties of double-walled carbon nanotube quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper studies the transport behavior of double-walled carbon nanotube quantum dots, revealing how their microscopic structure influences Coulomb blockade phenomena and nonlinear conductance through a bosonization approach.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework to analyze the interplay of structure and interactions in DWCNT quantum dots, predicting electron periodicities and excited state effects on transport.

Findings

8-electron periodicity in commensurate DWCNT QDs

4-electron periodicity in incommensurate DWCNT QDs

Excited states significantly affect nonlinear transport

Abstract

The transport properties of quantum dot (QD) systems based on double-walled carbon nanotube (DWCNT) are investigated. The interplay between microscopic structure and strong Coulomb interaction is treated within a bosonization framework. The linear and nonlinear G-V-V_g characteristics of the QD system is calculated by starting from the Liouville equation for the reduced density matrix. Depending on the intershell couplings, an 8-electron periodicity of the Coulomb blockade peak spacing in the case of commensurate DWCNT QDs and a 4-electron periodicity in the incommensurate case are predicted. The contribution of excited states of DWCNTs to the nonlinear transport is investigated as well.