Low temperature conductivity of carbon nanotube aggregates

Extreme Magneto-transport of Bulk Carbon Nanotubes in Sorted Electronic Concentrations and Aligned High Performance Fiber

We explored high-field (60 T) magneto-resistance (MR) with two carbon nanotube (CNT) material classes: (1) unaligned single-wall CNTs (SWCNT) films with controlled metallic SWCNT concentrations and doping degree and (2) CNT fiber with aligned, long-length microstructure. All unaligned SWCNT films showed localized hopping transport where high-field MR saturation definitively supports spin polarization instead of a more prevalent wave function shrinking mechanism. Nitric acid exposure induced an insulator to metal transition and reduced the positive MR component. Aligned CNT fiber, already on the metal side of the insulator to metal transition, had positive MR without saturation and was assigned to classical MR involving electronic mobility. Subtracting high-field fits from the aligned fiber’s MR yielded an unconfounded negative MR, which was assigned to weak localization. It is concluded that fluctuation induced tunnelling, an extrinsic transport model accounting for most of the aligned fiber’s room temperature resistance, appears to lack MR field dependence.

Stability of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid state in gamma-irradiated carbon nanotube bundles

We report experimental results for the changes in conductivity of single-wall carbon nanotube bundles when irradiated by (60)Co γ-rays in various environments. In the current study the samples investigated were irradiated in hermetic cells, either evacuated (0.1 Pa) or filled with hydrogen or deuterium at atmospheric pressure. In situ measurements of the resistance change as a function of irradiation dose at room temperature are presented. It was found that, for all irradiation conditions, the normalized resistance versus irradiation dose demonstrates a logarithmic behaviour. A phenomenological model for the observed dependence is derived. The current-voltage characteristics of the irradiated samples were measured in the temperature range from 4.5 to 300 K using short (10 ns) electric pulses, and the results demonstrate a scaling behaviour. This scaling occurs in the universal coordinates that correspond to the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid concept. Our results confirm the existence of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase up to room temperature in carbon nanotubes after γ-irradiation to a dose of 5 × 10(7) rad in vacuum, 1.7 × 10(7) rad in hydrogen and 1.24 × 10(8) rad in deuterium.