Single Wall Nanotubes: Atomic Like Behaviour and Microscopic Approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic behavior of single wall carbon nanotubes at low temperatures, emphasizing Coulomb interactions, and introduces a model bridging short and long-range electron-electron repulsions, aligning theory with experiments.

Contribution

It presents a new model for electron interactions in SWCNTs that interpolates between short and long-range regimes, enhancing understanding of experimental observations.

Findings

Coulomb blockade peaks observed in experiments.

Long-range Coulomb interactions significantly influence electronic transport.

Model aligns well with experimental data and quantum dot behavior.

Abstract

Recent experiments about the low temperature behaviour of a Single Wall Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) showed typical Coulomb Blockade (CB) peaks in the zero bias conductance and allowed us to investigate the energy levels of interacting electrons. Other experiments confirmed the theoretical prediction about the crucial role which the long range nature of the Coulomb interaction plays in the correlated electronic transport through a SWCNT with two intramolecular tunneling barriers. In order to investigate the effects on low dimensional electron systems due to the range of electron electron repulsion, we introduce a model for the interaction which interpolates well between short and long range regimes. Our results could be compared with experimental data obtained in SWCNTs and with those obtained for an ideal vertical Quantum Dot (QD). For a better understanding of some experimental results we also discuss how defects and doping can break some symmetries of the bandstructure of a SWCNT.