Large orbital magnetic moments in carbon nanotubes generated by resonant transport

Abstract

The nonequilibrium Green's function method is used to study the ballistic transport in metallic carbon nanotubes when a current is injected from the electrodes with finite bias voltages. We reveal, both analytically and numerically, that large loop currents circulating around the tube are induced, which come from a quantum mechanical interference and are much larger than the current along the tube axis when the injected electron is resonant with a time-reversed pair of degenerate states, which are, in fact, inherent in the zigzag and chiral nanotubes. This results in large orbital magnetic moments, making the nanotube a molecular solenoid.