Origin of conductivity crossover in entangled multiwalled carbon nanotube networks filled by iron

Abstract

A realistic transport model showing the interplay of the hopping transport between the outer shells of iron-filled entangled multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), and the diffusive transport through the inner part of the tubes, as a function of the filling percentage, is developed. This model is based on low-temperature electrical resistivity and magneto-resistance (MR) measurements. The conductivity at low temperatures showed a crossover from Efros-Shklovski variable range hopping (VRH) to Mott VRH in three dimensions (3D) between the neighboring tubes as the iron weight percentage is increased from 11$%$ to 19$%$ in the MWNTs. The MR in the hopping regime is strongly dependent on temperature as well as magnetic field and shows both positive and negative signs, which are discussed in terms of wave-function shrinkage and quantum-interference effects, respectively. A further increase of the iron percentage from 19$%$ to 31$%$ gives a conductivity crossover from Mott VRH to 3D weak localization (WL). This change is ascribed to the formation of long iron nanowires at the core of the nanotubes, which yields a long dephasing length (e.g., 30 nm) at the lowest measured temperature. Although the overall transport in this network is described by a 3D WL model, the weak temperature dependence of inelastic scattering length expressed as ${L}_{\ensuremath{\varphi}}$ \ensuremath{\sim} ${T}^{\ensuremath{-}0.3}$ suggests the possibility for the presence of one-dimensional channels in the network due to the formation of long Fe nanowires inside the tubes, which might introduce an alignment in the random structure.