We investigate combined effects of spin-orbit coupling and magnetic field in carbon nanotubes containing one or more bends along their length. We show how bends can be used to provide electrical control of confined spins, while spins confined in straight segments remain insensitive to electric fields. Device geometries that allow general rotation of single spins are presented and analyzed. In addition, capacitive coupling along bends provides coherent spin-spin interaction, including between otherwise disconnected nanotubes, completing a universal set of one- and two-qubit gates.
Carbon nanotube's large electro-mechanical coupling and robustness makes them attractive for applications where bending and buckling is present. But the nature of this coupling is not well understood. Existing theory treats only weak and homogeneous deformations. We generalize it and derive close-form expressions for bandgaps under non-homogeneous deformation. The theory is first compared with a number of published DFT simulations, and then applied to the specific case of bending and buckling -- where a kink is present. In the pre-buckling regime, bandgaps change $\propto\pm κ^4$ where $κ$ is …
We develop an effective tight-binding Hamiltonian for spin-orbit (SO) interaction in bent carbon nanotubes (CNT) for the electrons forming the $π$ bonds between the nearest neighbor atoms. We account for the bend of the CNT and the intrinsic spin-orbit interaction which introduce mixing of $π$ and $σ$ bonds between the $p_z$ orbitals along the CNT. The effect contributes to the main origin of the SO coupling--the folding of the graphene plane into the nanotube. We discuss the bend-related contribution of the SO coupling for resonant single-electron spin and charge transitions in a double quant…
Resonant manipulation of carbon nanotube valley-spin qubits by an electric field is investigated theoretically. We develop a new analysis of electrically driven spin resonance exploiting fixed physical characteristics of the nanotube: a bend and inhomogeneous disorder. The spectrum is simulated for an electron valley-spin qubit coupled to a hole valley-spin qubit and an impurity electron spin, and features that coincide with a recent measurement are identified. We show that the same mechanism allows resonant control of the full four-dimensional spin-valley space.
We study the effect of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in the quantum transport of carbon nanotubes with arbitrary chiralities. For certain spin directions, we find a strong spin-polarized electrical current that depends on the diameter of the tube, the length of the Rashba region and on the tube chirality. Predictions for the spin-dependent conductances are presented for different families of achiral and chiral tubes. We have found that different symmetries acting on spatial and spin variables have to be considered in order to explain the relations between spin-resolved conductances in carb…
We consider a semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) laying on a ferromagnetic insulating sub-strate with one end depassing the substrate and suspended over a metallic gate. We assume that the polarised substrate induces an exchange interaction acting as a local magnetic field for the electrons in the non-suspended CNT side. Generalizing the approach of I. Snyman and Yu.V. Nazarov [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 076805 (2012)] we show that one can generate electrostatically a tun-able spin-polarized polaronic state localized at the bending end of the CNT. We argue that at low temperatures manipulation an…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate systematically the water permeation properties across the single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) in the presence of the terahertz electric field (TEF). With the TEF normal to the nanotube, the fracture of the hydrogen bonds results in the giant peak of net fluxes across the SWCNT with a three-fold enhancement centered around 14THz. The phenomenon is attributed to the resonant mechanisms, characterized by librational, rotational, and rotation-induced responses of in-tube polar water molecules to the TEF. For the TEF along the symmetry axis of …
The length of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is an important metric for the integration of SWCNTs into devices and for the performance of SWCNT-based electronic or optoelectronic applications. In this work we propose a rather simple method based on electric-field induced differential absorption spectroscopy (EFIDAS) to measure the chiral-index-resolved average length of SWCNTs in dispersions. The method takes advantage of the electric-field induced length-dependent dipole moment of nanotubes and has been verified and calibrated by atomic force microscopy. This method not only provides…
High electric conductivity ~100 MegaSiemens/m and Seebeck coefficient >200 mkV/K of carbon nanotubes (CNT) make them attractive for a variety of applications. Unfortunately, a high thermal conductivity ~ 3000 W/(m*K) due to the phonon transport limits their capability for transforming energy between the heat and electricity. Here we show that increasing the charge carrier concentrations not only leads to an increase of both electric conductivity and Seebeck coeffcient, but also causes a substantial suppression of the thermal conductivity due to intensifying the phonon-electron collisions. A st…
We describe dynamics of spin and valley transitions driven by alternating electric fields in quantum dots defined electrostatically within semiconducting carbon nanotubes (CNT). We use the tight-binding approach to describe the states localized within a quantum dot taking into account the circumferential spin-orbit interaction due to the s-p hybridization and external fields. The basis of eigenstates localized in the quantum dot is used in the solution of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation for description of spin flips and inter-valley transitions that are driven by periodic perturbation…
We show that a carbon nanotube can serve as a functional electric weak link performing photo-spintronic transduction. A spin current, facilitated by strong spin-orbit interactions in the nanotube and not accompanied by a charge current, is induced in a device containing the nanotube weak link by circularly polarized microwaves. Nanomechanical tuning of the photo-spintronic transduction can be achieved due to the sensitivity of the spin-orbit interaction to geometrical deformations of the weak link.
We describe an approach to electrically control the strong interaction between a single electron spin and the vibrational motion of a suspended carbon nanotube resonator. The strength of the deflection-induced spin-phonon coupling is dependent on the wavefunction of the electron confined in a lateral carbon nanotube quantum dot. An electrical field along the nanotube shifts the effective center of the quantum dot, leading to the corresponding modification of the spin-phonon strength. Numerical simulations with experimentally reachable parameters show that high fidelity quantum state transfer b…
We use the tight-binding model to study the effect of transverse electric field on the low-temperature electronic specific heat (Cv) for armchair and zigzag boron nitride nanotubes (ABNNTs and ZBNNTs). For wide-band-gap BNNTs, electric field could significantly modulate their energy dispersions and shift many electronic states close to the Fermi energy. Under a critical electric field (Fc) the density of states show special peak structures and the vanishing specific heat at zero field jumps to a giant one. Cv, at Fc's, has a value comparable to that of the phonon specific heat and reveals stro…
An ambipolar $n$-$p$ double quantum dot defined by potential variation along a semiconducting carbon-nanotube is considered. We focus on the (1e,1h) charge configuration with a single excess electron in the conduction band state confined in the $n$-type dot and a single missing electron in the valence band state of the $p$-dot for which lifting of the Pauli blockade of the current was observed in the electric-dipole spin resonance [E. A. Laird et al. Nat. Nanotech. 8 , 565 (2013)]. The dynamics of the system driven by periodic electric field is studied with the Floquet theory and the time-depe…
