Carbon “peapods”—a new tunable nanoscale graphitic structure (Review)

We consider the electronic properties of empty single-wall nanotubes (SWNT) and SWNT filled with fullerene molecules (carbon “nano-peapods”). The first part of the review (Sec. II) is devoted mostly to the Luttinger liqued properties of individual metallic SWNT coupled to metallic electrodes or to superconducting leads. The discovery of carbon “nano-peapods” and their elastic, electric and thermal properties are reviewed in the second part of the paper (Sec. III). We suggest in particular how fullerene and metallofullerene molecules can be released from a “nano-peapod” by a purely electrostatic method.