We have studied the coherent dynamics of G-band phonons in single-walled carbon nanotubes through impulsive stimulated Stokes and anti-Stokes Raman scattering. The probe energy dependence of phonon amplitude as well as preferential occurrence between Stokes and anti-Stokes components in response to chirped-pulse excitation are well explained within our model. The temperature dependence of the observed dephasing rate clearly exhibits a thermally-activated component, with an activation energy that coincides with the frequency of the radial breathing mode (RBM). This fact provides a clear picture for the dephasing of optical phonons by random frequency modulation via interaction with the RBM through anharmonicity.
With the empirical bond polarizability model, the nonresonant Raman spectra of the chiral and achiral single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) under uniaxial and torsional strains have been systematically studied by textit{ab initio} method. It is found that both the frequencies and the intensities of the low-frequency Raman active modes almost do not change in the deformed nanotubes, while their high-frequency part shifts obviously. Especially, the high-frequency part shifts linearly with the uniaxial tensile strain, and two kinds of different shift slopes are found for any kind of SWCNTs. More interestingly, new Raman peaks are found in the nonresonant Raman spectra under torsional strain, which are explained by a) the symmetry breaking and b) the effect of bond rotation and the anisotropy of the polarizability induced by bond stretching.
We have used a femtosecond pump-probe impulsive Raman technique to explore the polarization dependence of coherent optical phonons in highly-purified and aligned semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Coherent phonon spectra for the radial breathing modes (RBMs) exhibit a different monochromatic frequency between the film and solution samples, indicating the presence of differing exciton excitation processes. By varying the polarization of the incident pump beam on the aligned SWCNT film, we found that the anisotropy of the coherent RBM excitation depends on the laser wavelength, which we consider to be associated with the resonant and off-resonant behavior of RBM excitation.
We report experimental measurements of electronic Raman scattering under resonant conditions by electrons in individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The inelastic Raman scattering at low frequency range reveals a single particle excitation feature and the dispersion of electronic structure around the center of Brillouin zone of a semiconducting SWNT (14, 13) is extracted.
We have used resonant Raman scattering spectroscopy to fully analyze the relative abundances of different (n,m) species in single-walled carbon nanotube samples that are metallically enriched by density gradient ultracentrifugation. Strikingly, the data clearly show that our density gradient ultracentrifugation process enriches the metallic fractions in armchair and near-armchair species. We observe that armchair carbon nanotubes constitute more than 50% of each (2n + m) family.
Much understanding exists regarding chirality-dependent properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on a single-tube level. However, macroscopic manifestations of chirality dependence have been limited, especially in electronic transport, despite the fact that such distinct behaviors are needed for any applications of SWCNT-based devices. In addition, developing reliable transport theory is challenging since a description of localization phenomena in an assembly of nanoobjects requires precise knowledge of disorder on multiple spatial scales, particularly if the ensemble is heterogeneous. Here, we report the observation of pronounced chirality-dependent electronic localization in temperature and magnetic field dependent conductivity measurements on single-chirality SWCNT films. The samples included semiconducting (6,5) and (10,3) films, chiral metallic (7,4) and (8,5) films, and armchair (6,6) films. Experimental data and theoretical calculations revealed variable-range-hopping dominated transport in all samples except the armchair SWCNT film. We obtained localization lengths that fall into three distinct categories depending on their band gaps. The clear deviation of the armchair films from the other films suggests their robustness toward defects and possible additional transport mechanisms. Our detailed analyses on electronic transport properties of single-chirality SWCNT films provide significant new insight into electronic transport in ensembles of nanoobjects, offering foundations for designing and deploying macroscopic SWCNT solid-state devices.