Pseudospin-dependent scattering in carbon nanotubes

Leonhard Mayrhofer and Dario Bercioux
Phys. Rev. B 84, 115126 – Published 21 September 2011

Abstract

The breaking of symmetry is the ground on which many physical phenomena are explained. This is important in particular for bipartite lattice structure as graphene and carbon nanotubes, where particle-hole and pseudo-spin are relevant symmetries. Here we investigate the role played by the defect-induced breaking of these symmetries in the electronic scattering properties of armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes. From Fourier transform of the local density of states we show that the active electron scattering channels depend on the conservation of the pseudo-spin. Further, we show that the lack of particle-hole symmetry is responsible for the pseudo-spin selection rules observed in several experiments. This symmetry breaking arises from the lattice reconstruction appearing at defect sites. Our analysis gives an intuitive way to understand the scattering properties of carbon nanotubes and can be employed to newly interpret several experiments on this subject. Further, it can be used to design devices such as pseudo-spin filter by opportune defect engineering.

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  • Received 2 September 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.115126

©2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Leonhard Mayrhofer1 and Dario Bercioux2,3

  • 1Fraunhofer IWM, Wöhlerstraße 11, D-79108 Freiburg, Germany
  • 2Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany
  • 3Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 84, Iss. 11 — 15 September 2011

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