Universal conductance fluctuation

These quantum effects, though they do not generally affect significantly the magnitude of the resistivity, introduce new features in the low temperature transport effects [8]. So, in addition to the semiclassical ideal and residual resistivities discussed above, we must take into account the contributions due to quantum localisation and interaction effects. These localisation effects were found to confirm the 2D character of conduction in MWCNT. In the same way, experiments performed at the mesoscopic scale revealed quantum oscillations of the electrical conductance as a function of magnetic field, the so-called universal conductance fluctuations (Sec. 5.2). 

Typical magnetoconductance data for the individual MWCNT are shown in Fig. 4. At low temperature, reproducible aperiodic fluctuations appear in the magnetoconduclance. The positions of the peaks and the valleys with respect to magnetic field are temperature independent. In Fig. 5, we present the temperature dependence of the peak-to-peak amplitude of the conductance fluctuations for three selected peaks (see Fig. 4) as well as the rms amplitude of the fluctuations, rms[AG]. It may be seen that the fiuctuations have constant amplitudes at low temperature, which decrease slowly with increasing temperature following a weak power law at higher temperature. The turnover in the temperature dependence of the conductance fluctuations occurs at a critical temperature Tc = 0.3 K which, in contrast to the values discussed above, is independent of the magnetic field. This behaviour was found to be consistent with a quantum transport effect of universal character, the universal conductance fluctuations (UCF) [25,26]. UCFs were previously observed in mesoscopic weakly disordered... 

So, despite the very small diameter of the MWCNT with respeet to the de Broglie wavelengths of the charge carriers, the cylindrical structure of the honeycomb lattice gives rise to a 2D electron gas for both weak localisation and UCF effects. Indeed, both the amplitude and the temperature dependence of the conductance fluctuations were found to be consistent with the universal conductance fluctuations models for mesoscopic 2D systems applied to the particular cylindrical structure of MWCNTs [10]. 

In conclusion, wc have shown the interesting information which one can get from electrical resistivity measurements on SWCNT and MWCNT and the exciting applications which can be derived. MWCNTs behave as an ultimate carbon fibre revealing specific 2D quantum transport features at low temperatures weak localisation and universal conductance fluctuations. SWCNTs behave as pure quantum wires which, if limited in length, reduce to quantum dots. Thus, each type of CNT has its own features which are strongly dependent on the dimensionality of the electronic gas. We have also briefly discussed the very recent experimental results obtained on the thermopower of SWCNT bundles and the effect of intercalation on the electrical resistivity of these systems. 

Reference 9 presents results of a study aimed at assessing the performance of the simplified procedures of [41] and [42] for a wide variety of typical randomly fluctuating wind loads. The load time histories were obtained from wind tunnel measurements conducted at Colorado State University on a model representative of a typical tall building [44]. The results of the study showed that the procedure of [42] provides excellent approximations to the equivalent 1-minute load of annealed glass panels with aspect... 

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