Nonlinear optical properties of boron doped single-walled carbon nanotubes

Author(s)

Benoy Anand, Ramakrishna Podila, Paola Ayala, Luciana Oliveira, Reji Philip, S. Siva Sankara Sai, Anvar A. Zakhidov, Apparao M. Rao

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs)

exhibit excellent nonlinear optical (NLO) properties due to the

delocalized π electron states present along their tube axis. Using the

open aperture Z-scan method in tandem with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy,

we demonstrate the simultaneous tailoring of both electronic and NLO

properties of SWCNTs, from ultrafast (femtosecond) to relatively slow

(nanosecond) timescales, by doping with a single substituent, viz., boron. SWCNTs were doped via a wet chemical method using B₂O₃, and the boron content and bonding configurations were identified using XPS.

While in the ns excitation regime, the nonlinear absorption was found

to increase with increasing boron concentration in the SWCNTs (due to

the increasing disorder and enhanced metallicity of the SWCNTs), the

saturation intensity in the fs excitation regime decreased. We attribute

this counter-intuitive behavior to excited state absorption on ns

timescales, and saturable absorption combined with weak two-photon transitions on fs timescales between van Hove singularities.

Organisation(s)

Electronic Properties of Materials

External organisation(s)

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Clemson University, East Carolina University, Raman Research Institute, University of Texas, Dallas

Journal

Nanoscale

Volume

Pages

7271-7276

No. of pages

ISSN

2040-3364

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1039/c3nr01803b

Publication date

2013

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103020 Surface physics, 103009 Solid state physics, 103018 Materials physics

Keywords

Portal url

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/nonlinear-optical-properties-of-boron-doped-singlewalled-carbon-nanotubes(5d3880a3-2034-402d-b7ef-aa08a63e8ceb).html