Current location: JICS Archive > Vol. 5 > No. 4 > Articles : 15

Effect of Impurity on Electronic Properties of Carbon Nanotubes

S. Jalili^a,b,*, M. Jafari^b and J. Habibian^a

^aNanosciences Research Center, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ^bFaculty of Science, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, P.O. Box 16315-1618, Tehran, Iran

We have studied the effect of impurity on electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes using Density Functional Theory. Electronic band structures and density of states of (4, 4) and (7, 0) carbon nanotubes in the presence of different amount of B and N impurities were calculated. It was found that these impurities have significant effect on the conductivity of carbon nanotubes. The metallic (4, 4) nanotube remains to be metallic after doping with B and N. The electronic properties of small gap semiconducting (7, 0) tube can extensively change in the presence of impurity. Our results indicate that B-doped and N-doped (7, 0) carbon nanotubes can be p-type and n-type semiconductors, respectively.

Keywords: Carbon nanotube, Density Functional Theory, Impurity, Semiconductors