Luttinger Liquid Behavior in Carbon Nanotubes.pdfVIP

1Luttinger Liquid Behavior in Carbon Nanotubes Marc Bockrath*, David H. Cobden*, Jia Lu*, Andrew G. Rinzler + , Richard E. Smalley + , Leon Balents # and Paul L. McEuen* *Department of Physics, University of California and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, 94720 + Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice Quantum Institute, and Department of Chemistry and Physics, MS-100, Rice University, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251 # Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030 An interacting one-dimensional (1D) electron system is predicted to behave very differently than its higher-dimensional counterparts. 1 Coulomb interactions strongly modify the properties away from those of a Fermi liquid, resulting in a Luttinger liquid (LL) characterized by a power-law vanishing of the density of states at the Fermi level. Experiments on one-dimensional semiconductor wires 2 and fractional quantum Hall conductors 3,4,5,6 have been interpreted using this picture, but questions remain about the connection between theory and experiment. Recently, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have emerged as a new type of 1D conductor 7,8,9,10 that may exhibit LL behavior 11,12 . Here we present measurements of the conductance of individual ropes of such SWNTs as a function of temperature and voltage. Power law behavior as a function of temperature or bias voltage is observed: G~ T α and dI/dV ~ V α . Both the power-law functional forms and the inferred exponents are in good agreement with theoretical predictions for tunneling into a LL. Since the initial discovery of SWNTs, experiments have revealed a great deal about their electronic properties. STM measurements of individual tubes have verified that they are either 1D semiconductors or conductors, depending upon their chirality 7,8 . Electrodes have also been attached to nanotubes and ropes of nanotubes to probe transport.