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Correlated electron systems

Gap opens in metallic nanotubes

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 147–148 (2009)Cite this article

The observation of a Mott transition from a metal to an insulator in an ultraclean carbon nanotube could open the door to a new generation of experiments that explore the influence of electron correlations on the properties of condensed-matter systems.

It is often stated that one-third of single-walled carbon nanotubes are metallic, which means there should not be an energy gap between their valence and conduction bands. However, a group of researchers at Caltech, Columbia and Yale universities has now observed an appreciable bandgap in samples of ultraclean carbon nanotubes that should, according to theory, be metallic1. The results show that all pure undoped carbon nanotubes are actually insulators. The group —led by Marc Bockrath and James Hone — assign this 'new gap' to an insulating state first proposed by Nevill Mott some sixty years ago2,3.

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Figure 1: Metal–insulator transitions can occur for different reasons, changing the band structure of the system.

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  1. Christian Schönenberger is in the Departement für Physik, Universität Basel, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland. christian.schoenenberger@unibas.ch,

    Christian Schönenberger

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  1. Christian Schönenberger
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Schönenberger, C. Gap opens in metallic nanotubes. Nature Nanotech 4, 147–148 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.31

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