Highlighting excitonic optical properties of bundled carbon nanotubes to tailor novel saturable absorbers
Résumé
We present the ability of bundled carbon nanotubes to replace classical III-V semiconductor quantum-wells in nanomaterials-based devices, such as efficient saturable absorbers. Preliminary study of bundled carbon nanotubes films is presented using scanning electronic microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Then, performing time-resolved pump-probe experiments, we show that excitonic nonlinear optical properties of bundled carbon nanotubes are simultaneously marked by ultrafast subpicosecond absorption recovery time, relative great contrast ratio and total recovery of absorption, in direct comparison with quantum-wells nanostructures. This first direct comparison attributes strong potential to bundled carbon nanotubes for all-optical switching devices, as lower-cost nanomaterials solution.