Elastic scattering of slow electrons by carbon nanotubes

TL;DR

This study calculates elastic scattering cross sections of slow electrons by carbon nanotubes using a simplified cylindrical potential model, providing insights into low-energy electron interactions with nanotubes.

Contribution

The paper introduces a zero-thickness cylindrical potential model for electron-nanotube scattering, extending previous fullerene scattering approaches to nanotubes at low energies.

Findings

Calculated total and partial scattering cross sections.

Provided angular distributions for electron scattering.

Analyzed the effect of angular momentum contributions.

Abstract

In this paper we calculate the elastic scattering cross sections of slow electron by carbon nanotubes. The corresponding electron-nanotube interaction is substituted by a zero-thickness cylindrical potential that neglects the atomic structure of real nanotubes, thus limiting the range of applicability of our approach to sufficiently low incoming electron energies. The strength of the potential is chosen the same that was used in describing scattering of electrons by fullerene C60. We present results for total and partial electron scattering cross sections as well as respective angular distributions, all with account of five lowest angular momenta contributions. In the calculations we assumed that the incoming electron moves perpendicular to the nanotube axis, since along the axis the incoming electron moves freely.