Surface electron perturbations and the collective behavior of atoms adsorbed on a cylinder

TL;DR

This study explores how atoms adsorbed on a carbon nanotube affect its electrical and mechanical properties, revealing insights into atomic interactions, phase transitions, and fluctuations in a one-dimensional cylindrical system.

Contribution

It demonstrates that adsorbed atoms induce measurable electrical changes and enables investigation of atomic phase behavior on a cylindrical graphene surface.

Findings

Charge transfer is similar across different atomic species.

Electrical conductance is sensitive to atomic phase transitions.

Mechanical resonance shifts allow single-atom mass detection.

Abstract

A single-walled carbon nanotube presents a seamless cylindrical graphene surface and is thus an ideal adsorption substrate for investigating the physics of atoms and molecules in two dimensions and approaching the one-dimensional limit. When a suspended nanotube is made into a transistor, frequency shifts of its mechanical resonances allow precise measurement of the adsorbed mass down to the single-atom level. Here we show that its electrical characteristics are also modified by the adsorbed atoms and molecules, partly as a result of a small charge transfer between them and the carbon surface. We quantify this charge transfer, finding it similar for many different species, and use the associated sensitivity of the conductance to carry out studies of phase transitions, critical scaling, dynamical fluctuations, and dissipative metastable states in a system of interacting atoms confined to a cylindrical geometry.