Electronic transport in carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the theoretical issues pertaining to carbon nanotubes, in particular to correlation effects in electronic transport. The concept of a Luttinger liquid can be applied to metallic single-wall nanotubes and the field-theoretic justification is outlined in the chapter. Additional evidence has recently been accumulated for transport in crossed nanotube geometries. A zero-bias anomaly in one robe has been observed, which is suppressed by a current flowing through the other nanotube. The most relevant coupling among the nanotubes is the electrostatic interaction generated via crossing-induced backscattering processes. Explicit solution of a simplified model is able to describe qualitatively the observed experimental data with only one adjustable parameter. The low-energy theory of superconductivity in carbon nanotube ropes is discussed in the chapter. A rope is modeled as an array of metallic nanotubes, taking into account phonon-mediated and Coulomb interactions and arbitrary Cooper pair hopping amplitudes (the Josephson couplings) among different tubes.