Photoluminescence from an individual double-walled carbon nanotube

Dmitry I. Levshov (1) , Romain Parret (1) , Huy-Nam Tran (1) , Thierry Michel (1) , Thi Thanh Cao , van Chuc Nguyen , Raul Arenal , Valentin N. Popov (2) , Sergei B. Rochal (3) , Jean-Louis Sauvajol (1) , Ahmed Azmi Zahab (1) , Matthieu Paillet (1)

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb
2 Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"
3 SFEDU - Southern Federal University [Rostov-on-Don]

We report direct and unambiguous evidence of the existence of inner semiconducting tube (ISCT) photoluminescence (PL) from measurements performed on four individual freestanding index-identified double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs). Based on thorough Rayleigh scattering, Raman scattering, and PL experiments, we are able to demonstrate that the ISCT PL is observed with a quantum yield estimated to be a few 10−6 independent of the semiconducting or metallic nature of the outer tube. This result is mainly attributed to ultrafast exciton transfer from the inner to outer tube. Furthermore, by carrying out PL excitation experiments on the (14,1)@(15,12) DWNT, we show that the ISCT PL can be detected through the optical excitation of the outer tube, indicating that the exciton transfer can also occur in the opposite way.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Dmitry I. Levshov, Romain Parret, Huy-Nam Tran, Thierry Michel, Thi Thanh Cao, et al.. Photoluminescence from an individual double-walled carbon nanotube. Physical Review B, 2017, 96 (19), pp.195410. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.96.195410⟩. ⟨hal-01653173⟩