Tuning of graphene nanoribbon Landau levels by a nanotube

We investigate theoretically the effects of a nanotube on the graphene nanoribbon Landau level spectrum utilizing the tight-binding model. The addition of a nanotube changes the original dispersionless Landau subbands into distorted parabolic ones, creates additional band-edge states, and modifies the subband spacings. Moreover, the dispersion relations rely sensitively on the nanotube location. The nanotube-ribbon couplings disrupt the Landau wavefunctions and lift their spatial symmetry, which will change the selection rule of optical transitions. The numbers, frequencies and heights of the density of states (DOS) peaks are found to be strongly dependent on the magnetic flux density and the nanotube location. The evolution of the DOS peak with the magnetic flux density is explored. The graphene nanoribbon Landau levels are shown to be modified in an unexpected fashion by the nanotube-ribbon interactions. These predictions can be validated by measuring the spectra of scanning tunneling experiments or magneto-optical experiments, and they are most observable by placing the nanotube at the electron wavefunction localization sites.