Dependence of the electrical properties of defective single-walled carbon nanotubes on the vacancy density

The relationship between the electric properties and the vacancy density in single-walled carbon nanotubes has been investigated from first principles as well as the dependence of the influencing range of a vacancy in the nanotube on the nanotube chirality. Compared with the long-range interaction of the vacancies in a single-walled carbon nanotube with non-zero chiral angle, a much shorter interaction was found between vacancies in a zigzag single-walled carbon nanotube. In this study, we investigated the bandstructure fluctuations caused by the nanotube strain, which depends on both the vacancy density and the tube chirality. These theoretical results provide new insight to understand the relationship between the local deformation of a defective single-walled carbon nanotube and its measurable electronic properties.