Elastic scattering of slow electrons by carbon nanotubes

Abstract

In this paper we calculate the cross sections for elastic scattering of slow electrons 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 to be the same as was used in describing the scattering of electrons by fullerene C60. We present results for total and partial electron scattering cross sections as well as their respective angular distributions, all with account of the five lowest angular momenta contributions. In the calculations we assumed that the incoming electron moves perpendicular to the nanotube axis, since an incoming electron along the axis moves freely.