Electronic density of states of helically-wrapped carbon nanotubes.

ABSTRACT

Motivated by evidences of helical wrapping of polymeric molecules around nanotubes, we perform a systematic study of how the electronic density of states of nanotubes is affected by the introduction of a coiling polarizing potential. The coiling perturbation, characterized by the wrapping angle, the polarizing width and the polarization strength, introduces an additional geometrical chirality that may not necessarily coincide with the intrinsic chiral angle of the nanotube. Features of the electronic density of states are shown to depend on this perturbation with different degrees of sensitivity. When correlated with the binding energy between the nanotube and the wrapping molecule, we find that noticeable changes in the density of states occur only for minimally bound structures.