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Letters to Nature
Nature 428, 536-539 (1 April 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature02425; Received 18 December 2003; Accepted 18 February 2004
Determination of electron orbital magnetic moments in carbon nanotubes
E. D. Minot, Yuval Yaish, Vera Sazonova & Paul L. McEuen
- Laboratory of Atomic and Solid-State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Paul L. McEuen Email: mceuen@ccmr.cornell.edu
Abstract
The remarkable transport properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are determined by their unusual electronic structure1. The electronic states of a carbon nanotube form one-dimensional electron and hole sub-bands, which, in general, are separated by an energy gap2, 3. States near the energy gap are predicted4, 5 to have an orbital magnetic moment,
orb, that is much larger than the Bohr magneton (the magnetic moment of an electron due to its spin). This large moment is due to the motion of electrons around the circumference of the nanotube, and is thought to play a role in the magnetic susceptibility of CNTs6, 7, 8, 9 and the magnetoresistance observed in large multiwalled CNTs10, 11, 12. But the coupling between magnetic field and the electronic states of individual nanotubes remains to be quantified experimentally. Here we report electrical measurements of relatively small diameter (2–5 nm) individual CNTs in the presence of an axial magnetic field. We observe field-induced energy shifts of electronic states and the associated changes in sub-band structure, which enable us to confirm quantitatively the predicted values for
orb.
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