Transport phenomena in nanotube quantum dots from strong to weak confinement

Abstract

We report low-temperature transport experiments on single-wall nanotubes with metallic leads of varying contact quality, ranging from weak tunneling to almost perfect transmission. In the weak tunneling regime, where Coulomb blockade dominates, the nanotubes act as one-dimensional quantum dots. For stronger coupling to the leads the conductance can be strongly enhanced by inelastic cotunneling and the Kondo effect. For open contacts Coulomb blockade is completely suppressed, and the low-temperature conductance remains generally high, although we often see distinct dips in the conductance versus gate voltage which may result from resonant backscattering.