Professor Ali Yazdani
Department of Physics
University of Illinois
Fine-Tuning Electronic States in Carbon Nanotubes
The discovery of carbon nanotubes has inspired remarkable advances in
science and engineering at the nanometer scale. I will describe
experiments that demonstrate a powerful approach to control the
electronic states in carbon nanotubes. The self-assembly of molecules
inside the hollow cores of these tubes is exploited to create a new
class of nanotube materials, the properties of which are examined using
state-of-the-art scanning tunneling microscopy techniques. The
electronic states of composite nanotube-based materials are shown to
depend on the interaction between one-dimensional states of carbon
nanotubes and the localized orbitals of encapsulated molecules. Such
fine-tuning of nanotubes' electronic states has potential applications
for exploring the physics of one-dimensional systems, as well as making
electronic devices based on these molecules.
Work done in collaboration with E. Mele, A. Johnson, and D. Luzzi at UPenn.
For popular accounts of the work (appropriate for undergraduates) see
this link.