Electronic, Transport and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes

This article reviews the electronic properties of plain and doped nanotubes. The effect of doping on transport is then discussed. Novel transport properties are obtained for N-P doped nanotubes. It will be shown that N-P junctions of semiconducting zigzag tubes have a rectifying behavior whereas those of metallic armchair tubes have a negative differential resistance. These effects become more pronounced as the tube radius is reduced. Such interesting and novel properties may be used for designing new nanoscale devices. In a second part, mechanical properties of the tubes and the effect of defects on them will be discussed. This section will be illustrated by the results of molecular dynamics simulations.