Conductance of Carbon Nanotubes

The recent report of quantized conductance in a 4 m long multiwalled nanotube (MWNT) raises the exciting possibility of ballistic transport at room temperature over relatively long distances. We argue that this is made possible by the special symmetry of the eigenstates of the lowest propagating modes in metallic nanotubes which suppresses backscattering. This unusual effect is absent for the higher propagating modes so that transport is not ballistic once the bias exceeds the cut-off energy for the higher modes, which is estimated to be approximately 75 meV for nanotubes of diameter approximately 15 nm. Also, we show that the symmetry of the eigenstates can significantly affect their coupling to the reservoir and hence the contact resistance. A simple model is presented that can be used to understand the observed conductance-voltage characteristics.