Elastic Electron Scattering from Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Electron scattering from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) plays a key role in understanding various electron-induced processes within these systems. While electron scattering from spherical systems, such as fullerenes, has been widely studied^1-4, cylindrical targets like CNTs remain less explored. In this work, we investigate elastic electron scattering from single-walled CNTs with zigzag (6,0), chiral (6,2) and (6,4), and armchair (6,6) geometries. Interaction potentials derived from density functional theory are employed within the partial wave analysis framework to calculate scattering cross sections^5. As the geometry changes from zigzag (6,0) to armchair (6,6), the interaction potential becomes deeper and broader with additional sub-structures, leading to enhanced cross sections and more pronounced resonances. These resonances are further analyzed using Fano parametrization to extract corresponding resonance parameters. In addition, a threshold law is developed to describe the low-energy behavior of these scattering parameters, which shows good agreement with the numerically calculated results.

References

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