Metal-to-semiconductor transition in squashed armchair carbon nanotubes.
We investigate electronic transport properties of the squashed armchair carbon nanotubes, using tight-binding molecular dynamics and the Green's function method. We demonstrate a metal-to-semiconductor transition while squashing the nanotubes and a general mechanism for such a transition. It is the distinction of the two sublattices in the nanotube that opens an energy gap near the Fermi energy. We show that the transition has to be achieved by a combined effect of breaking of mirror symmetry and bond formation between the flattened faces in the squashed nanotubes.
Center for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
Jun-Qiang
JQ
Lu
Jian
J
Wu
Wenhui
W
Duan
Feng
F
Liu
Bang-Fen
BF
Zhu
Bing-Lin
BL
Gu