Transverse field-induced effects in carbon nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper explores how transverse electric and magnetic fields can tune the electronic properties of single-walled armchair carbon nanotubes, affecting their band structure, electron interactions, and quantum behaviors.

Contribution

It demonstrates controlled manipulation of nanotube electronic properties using transverse fields, revealing new tunable quantum phenomena and effects on boundary conditions.

Findings

Fields induce energy gaps and break symmetries in nanotubes

Tunable Luttinger liquid behavior and spin-charge separation

Altered quantum dot properties in short nanotubes

Abstract

We investigate the properties of conduction electrons in single-walled armchair carbon nanotubes (SWNT) in the presence of both transverse electric and magnetic fields. We find that these fields provide a controlled means of tuning low-energy band structure properties such as inducing gaps in the spectrum, breaking various symmetries and altering the Fermi velocities. We show that the fields can strongly affect electron-electron interaction, yielding tunable Luttinger liquid physics, the possibility of spin-charge-band separation, and a competition between spin-density-wave and charge-density-wave order. For short tubes, the fields can alter boundary conditions and associated single-particle level spacings as well as quantum dot behavior.