Phase-coherent transport in ropes of single-wall carbon nanotubes - art. no. 121404

To study the phase breaking scattering events in single-wall carbon nanotub es (SWNTs), ropes of SWNTs are intentionally damaged by Ar+ ion milling. Du e to this treatment, the average distance an electron can travel before bei ng elastically scattered is reduced to about 10 nm. This significantly incr eases the probability of one-dimensional localization and allows us to obta in the phase coherence length (L-Phi) in ropes of SWNTs as a function of te mperature. We find that Nyquist scattering (tau (Phi)similar toT(-2/3)) as well as another dephasing mechanism with a tau (Phi) similar toT(-1) depend ence are involved in limiting the phase-coherent transport. We also investi gate the scattering of hot electrons in the system. The results support the statement that two different scattering mechanisms dominate the phase cohe rence length for different rope samples.