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Carbon nanotubes

Old nanotubes, new tricks

Nature Physics volume 4, pages 266–267 (2008)Cite this article

Despite more than a decade of study, single-wall carbon nanotubes still have the ability to surprise. One recent study finds that in ultraclean nanotubes an unexpectedly strong spin–orbit coupling arises; another demonstrates their ability to support one-dimensional Wigner crystals.

Nanoscale conductors are excellent laboratories for studying how fermions interact. Although the quantum mechanical nature of electrons — the best known of the fermions — is well established, an accurate description of their behaviour when confined within nanoscale structures can challenge even the most advanced of theoretical approaches. Consequently, the construction of model electron systems whose properties can be reliably controlled is vital to understanding them. Carbon nanotubes are perhaps the most popular of such systems. But after a decade of study, they still have the potential to surprise. On page 314 of this issue1, Deshpande and Bockrath observe the ability of nanotubes to support a one-dimensional Wigner crystal — an unusual structure consisting of a spontaneously formed array of highly localized electronic states. And in a report in Nature2, Kuemmeth and colleagues demonstrate that the spin and orbital motions of electrons in nanotubes are coupled, disproving the widespread expectation that these degrees of freedom should be independent.

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Figure 1: Electrons in carbon nanotubes.

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  1. Jesper Nygård is at the Niels Bohr Institute and Nano-Science Center, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. nygard@nbi.dk,

    Jesper Nygård

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  1. Jesper Nygård
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Nygård, J. Old nanotubes, new tricks. Nature Phys 4, 266–267 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys924

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