Band-gap modulations of double-walled carbon nanotubes under an axial magnetic field

We address here a theoretical study of electronic and transport properties of commensurate double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs). A single band tight binding hamiltonian is considered and the magnetic field is theoretically described by the Peierls approximation. Weak intershell interactions between a set of neighboring atoms on the walls of the inner and outer tubes are considered. Taking advantage of the real space description, arbitrary configurations of the relative position of the two tubes are taken into account. We study the possibility of Aharonov-Bohm effects in DWCNTs when a magnetic field is applied along the axial direction. The field intensity is found to be more effective than the relative interatomic positions in providing conductance gap modulations.