The electrical behavior of carbon nanotubes under high pressure

The electrical resistance and capacitance of multiwalled carbon nanotubes p roduced by modified are discharge were studied under pressure up to 20 GPa on a diamond anvil cell (DAC). The electrical resistance decreases graduall y with pressure below 3.21 cpa and shows a bump around 5.0 GPa, and the cap acitance exhibits a minimum value at 2.14 GPa, which corresponds to the cha nges of the electronic structure and lattice constants of carbon nanotubes under pressure. These results were conformed by the synchrotron X-ray diffr action and coincided with the prediction of the theoretical calculation. (C ) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.