The role of irradiation induced defects and temperature in the conducting properties of single-walled $(10,10)$ carbon nanotubes has been analyzed by means of a first-principles approach. We find that divacancies modify strongly the energy dependence of the differential conductance, reducing also the number of contributing channels from two (ideal) to one. A small number of divacancies (5–9) brings up strong Anderson localization effects and a seemly universal curve for the resistance as a function of the number of defects. It is also shown that low temperatures, about 15–65 K, are enough to smooth out the fluctuations of the conductance without destroying the exponential dependence of the resistivity as a function of the tube length.

• Received 29 July 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.266801