Transport in Nanotubes: Effect of Remote Impurity Scattering

Abstract

Theory of the remote Coulomb impurity scattering in single--wall carbon nanotubes is developed within one--electron approximation. Boltzmann equation is solved within drift--diffusion model to obtain the tube conductivity. The conductivity depends on the type of the nanotube bandstructure (metal or semiconductor) and on the electron Fermi level. We found exponential dependence of the conductivity on the Fermi energy due to the Coulomb scattering rate has a strong dependence on the momentum transfer. We calculate intra-- and inter--subband scattering rates and present general expressions for the conductivity. Numerical results, as well as obtained analytical expressions, show that the degenerately doped semiconductor tubes may have very high mobility unless the doping level becomes too high and the inter--subband transitions impede the electron transport.