349 research outputs found
Conductivity and Atomic Structure of Isolated Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes
We report associated high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM)
and transport measurements on a series of isolated multiwalled carbon
nanotubes. HRTEM observations, by revealing relevant structural features of the
tubes, shed some light on the variety of observed transport behaviors, from
semiconducting to quasi-metallic type. Non Ohmic behavior is observed for
certain samples which exhibit "bamboo like" structural defects. The resistance
of the most conducting sample, measured down to 20 mK, exhibits a pronounced
maximum at 0.6 K and strong positive magnetoresistance.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figure
Magnetic field resistant quantum interferences in bismuth nanowires based Josephson junctions
We investigate proximity induced superconductivity in micrometer-long bismuth
nanowires con- nected to superconducting electrodes with a high critical field.
At low temperature we measure a supercurrent that persists in magnetic fields
as high as the critical field of the electrodes (above 11 T). The critical
current is also strongly modulated by the magnetic field. In certain samples we
find regular, rapid SQUID-like periodic oscillations occurring up to high
fields. Other samples ex- hibit less periodic but full modulations of the
critical current on Tesla field scales, with field-caused extinctions of the
supercurrent. These findings indicate the existence of low dimensionally, phase
coherent, interfering conducting regions through the samples, with a subtle
interplay between orbital and spin contributions. We relate these surprising
results to the electronic properties of the surface states of bismuth, strong
Rashba spin-orbit coupling, large effective g factors, and their effect on the
induced superconducting correlations.Comment: 5 page
Very low shot noise in carbon nanotubes
We have performed noise measurements on suspended ropes of single wall carbon
nanotubes (SWNT) between 1 and 300 K for different values of dc current through
the ropes. We find that the shot noise is suppressed by more than a factor 100
compared to the full shot noise 2eI. We have also measured an individual SWNT
and found a level of noise which is smaller than the minimum expected. Another
finding is the very low level of 1/f noise, which is significantly lower than
previous observations. We propose two possible interpretations for this strong
shot noise reduction: i) Transport within a rope takes place through a few
nearly ballistic tubes within a rope and possibly involves non integer
effective charges. ii) A substantial fraction of the tubes conduct with a
strong reduction of effective charge (by more than a factor 50).Comment: Submitted to Eur. Phys. J. B (Jan. 2002) Higher resolution pictures
are posted on http://www.lps.u-psud.fr/Collectif/gr_07/publications.htm
0- quantum transition in a carbon nanotube Josephson junction: universal phase dependence and orbital degeneracy
We investigate experimentally the supercurrent in a clean carbon nanotube
quantum dot, close to orbital degeneracy, connected to superconducting leads in
a regime of strong competition between local electronic correlations and
superconducting proximity effect. For an odd occupancy of the dot and
intermediate coupling to the reservoir, the Kondo effect can develop in the
normal state and screen the local magnetic moment of the dot. This leads to
singlet-doublet transitions that strongly affect the Josephson effect in a
single-level quantum dot: the sign of the supercurrent changes from positive to
negative (0 to -junction). In the regime of strongest competition between
the Kondo effect and proximity effect, meaning that the Kondo temperature
equals the superconducting gap, the magnetic state of the dot undergoes a first
order quantum transition induced by the superconducting phase difference across
the junction. This is revealed experimentally by anharmonic current-phase
relations. In addition, the very specific electronic configuration of clean
carbon nanotubes, with two nearly orbitally degenerated states, leads to
different physics depending whether only one or both quasi-degenerate upper
levels of the dots participate to transport, which is determined by their
occupancy and relative widths. When the transport of Cooper pairs takes place
through only one of these levels, we find that the phase diagram of the
phase-dependent 0- transition is a universal characteristic of a
discontinuous level-crossing quantum transition at zero temperature. In the
case were two levels participate to transport, the nanotube Josephson current
exhibits a continuous 0- transition, independent of the superconducting
phase, revealing a different physical mechanism of the transition.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure
Superconductivity in ropes of carbon nanotubes
Recent experimental and theoretical results on intrinsic superconductivity in
ropes of single-wall carbon nanotubes are reviewed and compared. We find strong
experimental evidence for superconductivity when the distance between the
normal electrodes is large enough. This indicates the presence of attractive
phonon-mediated interactions in carbon nanotubes, which can even overcome the
repulsive Coulomb interactions. The effective low-energy theory of rope
superconductivity explains the experimental results on the
temperature-dependent resistance below the transition temperature in terms of
quantum phase slips. Quantitative agreement with only one fit parameter can be
obtained. Nanotube ropes thus represent superconductors in an extreme 1D limit
never explored before.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, to appear in special issue of Sol. State Com
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