THEORY OF THE ELECTRICAL TRANSPORT IN METALLIC SINGLE-WALL NANOTUBES

Abstract

A metallic (semiconducting) single-wall nanotube contains an irrational (integral) number of carbon hexagons in the pitch. The room-temperature conductivity is higher by two to three orders of magnitude in metallic nanotubes than in semiconducting nanotubes. Tans et al. [Nature386 (1997) 474] measured the electrical currents in metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes under bias and gate voltages, and observed non-Ohmic behaviors. The original authors interpreted their data in terms of a ballistic transport due to the Coulomb blockage on the electron-carrier model. The mystery of why a ballistic electron is not scattered by impurities and phonons is unexplained, however. An alternate interpretation is presented based on the Cooper pair (pairon)–carrier model. Superconducting states are generated by the Bose–Einstein condensation of the ± pairons at momenta 2πℏn/L, where L is the tube length and n a small integer. As the gate voltage changes the charging state of the tube, the superconducting states jump between different n. The normal current peak shapes appearing in the transition are found to be temperature-dependent, which is caused by the electron–optical phonon scattering.