Nuclear Magnetism and Electronic Order in 13C Nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electron interactions in 13-C nanotubes induce a coupled electron-nuclear magnetic order, significantly affecting conductance and observable via transport measurements at very low temperatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that weak hyperfine interactions in metallic 13-C nanotubes can lead to a novel ordered phase involving both electrons and nuclei, persisting at millikelvin temperatures.

Findings

Ordered phase reduces conductance by a factor of 2

Weak hyperfine coupling induces electron-nuclear magnetic order

Order persists up to millikelvin temperatures

Abstract

Single wall carbon nanotubes grown entirely from 13-C form an ideal system to study the effect of electron interaction on nuclear magnetism in one dimension. If the electrons are in the metallic, Luttinger liquid regime, we show that even a very weak hyperfine coupling to the 13-C nuclear spins has a striking effect: The system is driven into an ordered phase, which combines electron and nuclear degrees of freedom, and which persists up into the millikelvin range. In this phase the conductance is reduced by a universal factor of 2, allowing for detection by standard transport experiments.