Interplay of Aharonov-Bohm, chirality, and aspect ratio effects in the axial conductance of a nanotube

TL;DR

This paper investigates how magnetic flux influences the axial conductance of nanotubes, revealing effects of chirality and aspect ratio that could help determine nanotube properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates how magnetic flux can counteract chirality effects in nanotubes, affecting conductance patterns and enabling chirality determination.

Findings

Long tubes show sharp conductance peaks at flux quanta for armchair tubes.

Chiral tubes exhibit periodic pairs of conductance peaks related to chirality.

Short tubes reach universal graphene conductivity with flux-dependent modulation.

Abstract

A magnetic flux applied along the axis of a nanotube can counteract the effect of the tube chirality and dramatically affect its conductance, leading to a way to determine the chirality of a nanotube. The effect of the applied flux is strongest in the long tube limit where the conductance is (i) either a sequence of sharp $4e^{2}/h$ height peaks located at integer (in units of the flux quantum) values of the flux (for an armchair tube) or (ii) a periodic sequence of pairs of $2e^{2}/h$ height peaks for a chiral tube, with the spacing determined by the chirality. In the short tube limit the conductance takes on the value that gives the universal conductivity of an undoped graphene sheet, with a small amplitude modulation periodic in the flux.