Disparate Quantum Corrections to Conduction in Carbon Nanotube Bundles
Abstract
Quantum interference effects such as weak localization (WL) and universal conductance fluctuations (UCF) normally yield consistent electronic phase-coherence lengths in homogeneous conductors. Here we show that in individual carbon nanotube bundles exfoliated from highly conductive solution-spun fibers, different probes, including the field scales and magnitudes of WL and UCF and nonlocal magnetoconductance, lead to strikingly disparate estimates of coherence lengths. WL magnetoconductance measured in a perpendicular magnetic field yields a phase-coherence length of approximately 50 nm. In contrast, UCF amplitudes are comparable to e squared over h even for an 8 micrometer long segment, and nonlocal magnetoconductance persists across a 4 micrometer separation of electrodes, revealing phase-coherent transport over micrometer length scales within a single bundle. The coexistence of short- and long-range coherence implies that locally diffusive electrons remain partially phase-correlated among nanotubes within the same bundle. These findings challenge the conventional single-scale picture of mesoscopic coherence and establish carbon nanotube bundles as a model platform for emergent, network-level quantum transport.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.15570,
title = {Disparate Quantum Corrections to Conduction in Carbon Nanotube Bundles},
author = {Shengjie Yu and Zhengyi Lu and Renjie Luo and Tanner Legvold and Natsumi Komatsu and Liyang Chen and Oliver S. Dewey and Lauren W. Taylor and Huaijin Sun and Matteo Pasquali and Geoff Wehmeyer and Matthew S. Foster and Junichiro Kono and Douglas Natelson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.15570},
year = {2026}
}