Electronic Transport Properties of Carbon NanoBuds

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the electronic transport properties of Carbon NanoBuds, hybrid materials combining fullerenes and nanotubes, revealing energy-dependent transmission characteristics and localized states.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed theoretical investigation of the electronic transport in Carbon NanoBuds using ab initio and tight-binding methods.

Findings

High transmission below the Fermi energy with geometry-dependent width

Strong reduction of electron transmission above the Fermi energy due to localized states

Transmission properties vary significantly with structure geometry

Abstract

Fullerene functionalized carbon nanotubes -- NanoBuds -- form a novel class of hybrid carbon materials, which possesses many advantageous properties as compared to the pristine components. Here, we report a theoretical study of the electronic transport properties of these compounds. We use both ab initio techniques and tight-binding calculations to illustrate these materials' transmission properties, and give physical arguments to interpret the numerical results. Specifically, above the Fermi energy we find a strong reduction of electron transmission due to localized states in certain regions of the structure while below the Fermi energy all considered structures exhibit a high-transmission energy band with a geometry dependent width.