Band structure and transport properties of carbon nanotubes using a local pseudopotential and a transfer-matrix technique

Abstract

In order to address the band-structure and transport properties of carbon nanotubes, we build a local pseudopotential from the requirement that results relevant to the π-bands of simple hexagonal graphite and isolated graphene sheets are reproduced. We then apply a transfer-matrix technique to compute the band structure and conductance of the (10,0), (5,5), (10,10), (15,15) and (10,10)@(15,15) carbon nanotubes. We also investigate how the conductance of a broken (10,10) nanotube is affected by a (15,15) tube placed around the gap. Our results show how fast band-structure and stationary-wave effects appear in finite-size nanotubes. They provide a complementary insight on the effects of the tubes' curvature and the transferability of parameters from graphite to carbon nanotubes.