A Carbon Nanotube Cross Structure as a Nanoscale Quantum Device

Traditional lithographically defined quantum wells in 2D electron gases are often too big (several hundreds of nanometers to a few micrometers) to exhibit single-electron effects at room temperature. Here, a structure is proposed that makes use of the electromechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes to fabricate a quantum well with a width on the order of a few nanometers. As an example, (8, 0) nanotubes are used in the quantum device, and the corresponding electronic structure is calculated.