Eur. Phys. J. B 43, 399-403 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00070-2

Quantum interference in nanotube electron waveguides

¹ Department of Mathematics and Physics, Zhongyuan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450007, China
² National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

Corresponding author: ^a lfyzz@yahoo.com.cn

Received: 28 December 2003
Revised: 30 September 2004
Published online: 15 March 2005

Abstract

We have calculated the quantum conductance of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) waveguide by using a tight binding-based Green's function approach. Our calculations show that the slow conductance oscillations as well as the fast conductance oscillations are manifestations of the intrinsic quantum interference properties of the conducting SWNTs, being independent of the defect and disorder of the SWNTs. And zigzag type tubes do not show the slow oscillations. The SWNT electron waveguide is also found to have distinctly different transport behavior depending on whether or not the length of the tube is commensurate with a (3N+1) rule, with N the number of basic carbon repeat units along the nanotube length.