Electronic intertube transfer in double-wall carbon nanotubes

Effects of intertube interactions on transport are studied numerically in incommensurate double-wall carbon nanotubes. The intertube transfer at each lattice site oscillates around zero in a complex plane as a function of position in a quasiperiodic manner and therefore cancels each other when being summed up. The cancellation is not perfect in the presence of sharp edges, giving rise to an intertube conductance much smaller than e²∕π and determined by the structure at edges. The conductance exhibits a wild and almost irregular oscillation as a function of the length with average and fluctuations independent of the length due to the change of the edge structure.