Disorder effects and electronic conductance in metallic carbon nanotubes

Disorder effects on density of states and electronic conduction in metallic carbon nanotubes are analyzed by a tight binding model with Gaussian bond disorder. Metallic armchair and zigzag nanotubes are considered. We obtain a conductance which becomes smaller by the factor of the inverse of a few from that of the clean nanotube. This decrease mainly comes from lattice fluctuations of the width which is comparable to thermal fluctuations. We also find that suppression of electronic conductance around the Fermi energy due to disorder is smaller than that of the inner valence (and conduction) band states. This is due to the extended nature of electronic states around the Fermi energy between the valence and conduction bands. Such property is typical to electronic structures of metallic carbon nanotubes. PACS numbers: 72.80.Rj, 72.15.Eb, 73.61.Wp, 73.23.Ps E-mail address: [email protected]; URL: http://www.etl.go.jp/ ̃harigaya/ Corresponding address