New insights into the photoluminescence of double-walled carbon nanotubes
Résumé
We report the direct and unambiguous evidence of the existence of inner semiconducting tube (iSCT) photoluminescence (PL) from measurements performed on four individual free-standing 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 esti-mated as a few 10-6 independently of the semiconducting or metallic nature of the outer tube. This result is mainly attributed to ultrafast exciton transfer from 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 (Figure 1) indicating that the exciton transfer can also occur in the opposite way.