Tunneling phenomena in aligned multi-walled carbon nanotube sheets: conductivity and Raman correlations

Abstract

We performed simultaneous Raman spectroscopy and electrical conductivity measurements on self-standing aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes sheets at varying inter-tube distances. A sapphire anvil cell is used here to modulate the inter-tube distance and promote the subsequent electronic tunneling phenomena. We observe a singular correlation between the intensity of the so called defect bands of carbon materials and their conductivity. This indicates that the conditions of the resonant processes that originate these bands are modified by the tunneling phenomena. Such an issue has never been reported before and has potential technological applications. Additionally, the provided AFM images evidence the debundling of the carbon nanotubes that had been described to occur after small compression.