Electronic structure and chemical reactivity of carbon nanotubes: a chemist's view

A qualitative description of the electronic structure of single-wall carbon nanotubes from a chemical perspective is presented using real-space orbital representations and traditional concepts of aromaticity, orbital symmetry and frontier orbitals. This unusual view of carbon nanotubes allows us to merge the solid-state physics description of band structures with the molecular orbitals framework of reaction mechanisms used in organic chemistry and to predict intriguing chemical selectivity based on electronic structure.