Carbon Nanotubes Junction Conductance mechanism: Electronic or Phonon-Assisted?

We report the transport properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) films theoretically and experimentally. Using the perturbation theory within the tight-binding model approach, we have revealed that the electronic SWCNT junction conductance of the atomically relaxed structure is almost an order of magnitude larger than that in the unrelaxed structure. We demonstrate that the phonon-assisted junction conductance is commensurate to the electronic conductance at room temperature, and it plays a crucial role in the observed temperature dependence. Furthermore, we address the dependence of junction conductance on the angle between the SWCNTs, twist angle and sliding shift of the SWCNTs, the Fermi energy, and the applied bias voltage between SWCNTs. Our calculations perfectly match the experimentally measured temperature conductance.