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, µorb, 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 µorb.
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Acknowledgements
We thank H. Ustunel, T. Arias and H. Dai for discussions. This work was supported by the NSF through the Cornell Center for Materials Research and the Center for Nanoscale Systems, and by the MARCO Focused Research Center on Materials, Structures, and Devices. Sample fabrication was performed at the Cornell node of the National Nanofabrication Users Network, funded by NSF. One of us (E.D.M.) acknowledges support by an NSF graduate fellowship.
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Minot, E., Yaish, Y., Sazonova, V. et al. Determination of electron orbital magnetic moments in carbon nanotubes. Nature 428, 536–539 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02425
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02425
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