Doped carbon nanotubes as a model system of biased graphene

Abstract

Albeit difficult to access experimentally, the density of states (DOS) is a key parameter in solid-state systems, which governs several important phenomena including transport, magnetism, thermal, and thermoelectric properties. We study DOS in an ensemble of potassium intercalated single-wall carbon nanotubes and show, using electron spin resonance spectroscopy, that a sizable number of electron states are present, which gives rise to a Fermi-liquid behavior in this material. A comparison between theoretical and the experimental DOS indicates that it does not display significant correlation effects, even though the pristine nanotube material shows a Luttinger-liquid behavior. We argue that the carbon nanotube ensemble essentially maps out the whole Brillouin zone of graphene, thus it acts as a model system of biased graphene.