Kinetic study on self-energy and stopping power of charged particles moving in metallic carbon nanotubes

Abstract

A semiclassical kinetic model is developed to simulate the plasmon excitation of nanotubes and the transport of charged particles moving through nanotubes. With the introduction of electron band structure, the analytical expressions of the dielectric function and the energy loss function are obtained for zigzag and armchair nanotubes of metallic properties, respectively. Numerical results display several very distinct peaks in the curves of loss function, showing effects from the collective excitation. Furthermore, the stopping power and self-energy are calculated while charged particles move along the axis of nanotubes with different geometries, under the influence of friction coefficients. For small enough friction coefficients, it can be regarded as a case with zero damping. But as the damping factor increases, not only the self-energy and stopping power decrease in magnitude, but also their extrema move to lower velocities, without distinct threshold effects.