Quantum Behavior of Electrons on Helical Nanostrips

We consider quantum behavior of electrons confined to move on the surface of a normal helical strip and a binormal helical strip, respectively. Such strips of nanoscale dimension appear in many different contexts in materials science. We derive the effective quantum potentials experienced by the electrons, which are induced by the respective curved geometries of the two strips. We show that under certain conditions, an electron gets localized on helical curves at two different distances from the central helix, for the two strips. This happens for both open and closed strips. This observation leads to the interesting possibility that if an open binormal helical strip is mechanically flipped to the normal strip configuration (or vice versa) electrons can get transported from one curve to the other, along the width of the strip. If the flipping of the strip is periodic, electrons can move in a periodic fashion across the strip. This phenomenon can be applied in designing electromechanical devices in nanotechnology.