Unix: how to have delimiter as "\t&\t" in paste-tool?

Question

Results are in clean files. I want to get them to latex-table format with paste.

1. So how can I have a delimiter "\t&\t"?
2. or is there some Latex tool?

Pasting Columnwise to have \t&\t delimiter

$ paste -d'\t\&\t' d d_powered_-2 rad
5.0 400.0&384.5
7.5 204.1&184.5
10.0        100.0&115.5
15.0        44.4&58.2
20.0        25.0&45.0
25.0        16.0&38.8
30.0        11.1&33.3
35.0        8.2&34.4
37.0        7.3&34.1
40.0        6.2&34.1
$ paste d d_powered_-2 rad
5.0         400.0   384.5
7.5         204.1   184.5
10.0        100.0   115.5
15.0        44.4    58.2
20.0        25.0    45.0
25.0        16.0    38.8
30.0        11.1    33.3
35.0        8.2     34.4
37.0        7.3     34.1
40.0        6.2     34.1

Answer 1

How about postprocessing?

paste ... | sed 's/\t/\t\&\t/g'

Answer 2

paste takes the argument after -d and cycles through the individual characters, using each as separators in turn. You will either need to postprocess or use a different tool such as awk.