Tight-binding computation of the STM image of carbon nanotubes

STM imaging of single-wall carbon nanotubes has recently been achieved with atomic resolution, revealing the chirality of the carbon network. In this work, a theoretical modeling of scanning tunneling microscopy of the nanotubes is presented, based on a tight-binding pi-electron Hamiltonian. This theory is simple enough to be used routinely for the computation of STM images and current-voltage characteristics, making it possible to investigate specific effects of the network curvature and topology such as a pentagon-heptagon pair defect.