Evidence for Luttinger liquid behavior in crossed metallic single-wall nanotubes

Abstract

Experimental and theoretical results for transport through crossed metallic single-wall nanotubes are presented. We observe a zero-bias anomaly in one tube which is suppressed by a current flowing through the other nanotube. The phenomenon is shown to be consistent with the picture of strongly correlated electrons within the Luttinger liquid model. The most relevant coupling between the nanotubes is the electrostatic interaction generated via crossing-induced backscattering processes. Explicit solution of a simplified model is able to describe qualitatively the observed experimental data with only one adjustable parameter.