Transport properties of double-walled carbon nanotubes in a transverse electric field

Electronic and transport properties of finite length double-walled carbon nanotubes subject to the influences of a transverse electric field are studied by the tight-binding model. The electric field would modify state energies and modulate energy gap. Effects of intertube interactions on the electronic and transport properties are also investigated. The electronic structures are found to exhibit rich dependence on the field strength, the intertube interactions, and the nanotube length. The variations of state energies with the electric field will also be reflected in the electrical and thermal conductance. The positions of the conductance peaks are strongly dependent on the intertube interactions, and the nanotube length. The heights of the electrical and thermal conductance peaks display the quantized behavior, while those of the Peltier coefficient do not. The different symmetric configurations can be distinguished by the electrical conductance measurements.