Physics of Carbon Nanotube Devices

Chapter 1. Introduction

Carbon nanotubes are high aspect ratio hollow cylinders with diameters ranging from one to tens of nanometers, and with lengths up to centimeters. As the name implies, carbon nanotubes are composed entirely of carbon, and represent one of many structures that carbon adopts in the solid state. Other forms of solid carbon include for example diamond, graphite, and buckyballs. These many different forms arise because of the ability of carbon to form hybridized orbitals and achieve relatively stable structures with different bonding configurations. Carbon nanotubes exist because of sp² hybridization, the same orbital structure that leads to graphite. In this chapter, we discuss the atomic and electronic structure of carbon ...