Electronic structure and dynamics of optically excited single-wall carbon nanotubes

Axel Hagen¹, Gunnar Moos¹, Vadim Talalaev², Jens W. Tomm² and Tobias Hertel^1,2

¹Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany

²Max-Born-Institut für Nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie, Max Born Str. 2 A, D-12489 Berlin, Germany

³Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

We have studied the electronic structure and charge-carrier dynamics of individual single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and nanotube ropes using optical and electron-spectroscopic techniques. The electronic structure of semiconducting SWNTs in the band-gap region is analyzed using near-infrared absorption spectroscopy. A semi-empirical expression for E₁₁S transition energies, based on tight-binding calculations is found to give striking agreement with experimental data. Time-resolved PL from dispersed SWNT-micelles shows a decay with a time constant of about 15 ps. Using time-resolved photoemission we also find that the electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling in metallic tubes is characterized by a very small e-ph mass-enhancement of 0.0004. Ultrafast electron-electron scattering of photo-excited carriers in nanotube ropes is finally found to lead to internal thermalization of the electronic system within about 200 fs.