Electronic and transport properties of nanotubes

TLDR

This review surveys the electronic and transport properties of carbon nanotubes, focusing mainly on theoretical insights while relating them to experimental observations when relevant. The authors employ band‑folding, tight‑binding, and ab initio methods to determine metallic or semiconducting behavior and to analyze transport regimes, disorder effects, and realistic scatterers, including electron‑phonon interactions. Beyond the non‑interacting picture, the review highlights excitonic optical effects, Coulomb blockade, Luttinger liquid behavior, charge density waves, and superconducting transitions in nanotubes.

Abstract

This article reviews the electronic and transport properties of carbon nanotubes. The focus is mainly theoretical, but when appropriate the relation with experimental results is mentioned. While simple band-folding arguments will be invoked to rationalize how the metallic or semiconducting character of nanotubes is inferred from their topological structure, more sophisticated tight-binding and ab initio treatments will be introduced to discuss more subtle physical effects, such as those induced by curvature, tube-tube interactions, or topological defects. The same approach will be followed for transport properties. The fundamental aspects of conduction regimes and transport length scales will be presented using simple models of disorder, with the derivation of a few analytic results concerning specific situations of short- and long-range static perturbations. Further, the latest developments in semiempirical or ab initio simulations aimed at exploring the effect of realistic static scatterers (chemical impurities, adsorbed molecules, etc. ) or inelastic electron-phonon interactions will be emphasized. Finally, specific issues, going beyond the noninteracting electron model, will be addressed, including excitonic effects in optical experiments, the Coulomb-blockade regime, and the Luttinger liquid, charge density waves, or superconducting transition.