Temperature-dependent resistivity of single-wall carbon nanotubes

¹ Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6272, USA
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6272, USA
³ Institut Charles Sadron, CNRS-ULP, 6 rue Boussingault, 67000 Strasbourg, France
⁴ Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice Quantum Institute, Departments of Chemistry and Physics, Rice University, Houston TX 77251, USA
⁵ Department of Applied Physics and DIMES, Delft University of Technology Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands

Received: 29 August 1997
Accepted: 26 January 1998

Abstract

Samples of single-wall carbon nanotubes containing tubes with an “armchair" wrapping have been produced and exhibit metallic behavior with an intrinsic resistivity which increases approximately linearly with temperature over a wide temperature range. Here we study the coupling of the conduction electrons to long-wavelength torsional shape fluctuations, or twistons. A one-dimensional theory of the scattering of electrons by twistons is presented which predicts an intrinsic resistivity proportional to the absolute temperature. Experimental measurements of the temperature dependence of the resistivity are reported and compared with the predictions of the twiston theory.