A quantum mechanical formulation of electron transport induced wind forces in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes

In this paper the forces induced on the atoms of the lattice due an electric current (electron transport induced wind forces) are calculated based on quantum mechanics. These forces are calculated in metallic single-walled armchair carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) from the momentum transfer between the charge carriers and the lattice in a quantum mechanical framework. Energy and phonon dispersion relations are the main input for the formulation proposed. Scattering of electrons with longitudinal acoustic and longitudinal optical phonons are considered to be the only scattering mechanisms that are responsible for the momentum exchange. The current–voltage characteristics are also predicted using the same framework and show good agreement with experimental data. The study shows that using the constant effective charge number for SWCNT is inaccurate at higher electric field forces due to saturation of the lowest energy subband. The thermal effect on the effective charge number appears to be very important, due to the increasing scattering probabilities at higher temperatures.