0000000000358744
AUTHOR
Sergei M. Bachilo
Dependence of Exciton Mobility on Structure in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Optically generated excitons in semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) display substantial diffusional mobility. This property allows excitons to encounter ∼104 carbon atoms during their lifetime and accounts for their efficient deactivation by sparse quenching sites. We report here experimental determinations of the mobilities of optically generated excitons in 10 different (n,m) species of semiconducting SWCNTs. Exciton diffusional ranges were deduced from measurements of stepwise photoluminescence quenching in selected individual SWCNTs coated with sodium deoxycholate surfactant and immobilized in agarose gel. A refined data analysis method deduced mean exciton ranges fro…
Evidence for long-lived, optically generated quenchers of excitons in single-walled carbon nanotubes.
The nonlinear dependence of near-infrared photoluminescence (PL) emission on excitation intensity has been measured for individual nanotubes representing six different (n,m) species. Significant deviations from linearity are observed for intensities as low as ~100 W/cm(2), and an approximate inverse correlation is found between nonlinearity and PL action cross section (brightness). A model in which all PL nonlinearity arises from exciton-exciton annihilation is insufficient to account for the experimental data using realistic parameters. It is proposed that additional nonlinear quenching arises from photoinduced quenching states or species with longer lifetimes than emissive excitons. Evide…
Surfactant-Dependent Exciton Mobility in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Studied by Single-Molecule Reactions
Measurements of stepwise photoluminescence quenching in individual, (n,m)-selected single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) undergoing chemical reaction have been analyzed to deduce mobilities of optically generated excitons. For (7,5) nanotubes, the mean exciton range varies between approximately 140 and 240 nm for different surfactant coatings and correlates weakly with nanotube PL intensity. The results are consistent with a model of localized SWCNT excitons having substantial diffusional mobility along the nanotube axis.