On the low-temperature anomalies of specific heat in disordered carbon nanotubes

•Low-temperature anomalies of specific heat in CNTs might have electronic nature.•These anomalies cannot be associated with a change in dimension of atomic vibrations.•Electronic nature is determined by electrons scattered on point defects.•These electrons participate in the formation of a new short-range order.•Within our model it is possible to calculate the short-range order parameters.

The low-temperature behavior of the specific heat in disordered nanotubes strongly depends on structure changes and is not explained by the phonon contribution. Expression for electronic specific heat is carried out taking into account the multiple elastic electron scattering on impurities and structural inhomogeneities of short-range order type. The calculated electronic specific heat depends on diameter of nanotube, concentration of impurities, parameters of short-range order (structural heterogeneity) and describes the peculiarities of low-temperature behavior of specific heat observed in disordered CNT.