Spontaneous decay of excited atomic states near a carbon nanotube

Abstract

Spontaneous decay process of an excited atom placed inside or outside (near the surface) a carbon nanotube is analyzed. Calculations have been performed for various achiral nanotubes. The effect of the nanotube surface has been demonstrated to dramatically increase the atomic spontaneous decay rate -- by 6 to 7 orders of magnitude compared with that of the same atom in vacuum. Such an increase is associated with the nonradiative decay via surface excitations in the nanotube.