Probing the ultrafast dynamics of excitons in single semiconducting carbon nanotubes

Birkmeier, Konrad; Hertel, Tobias und Hartschuh, Achim (21. October 2022): Probing the ultrafast dynamics of excitons in single semiconducting carbon nanotubes. In: Nature Communications, Vol. 13, No. 1

Abstract

Excitonic states govern the optical spectra of low-dimensional semiconductor nanomaterials and their dynamics are key for a wide range of applications, such as in solar energy harvesting and lighting. Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes emerged as particularly rich model systems for one-dimensional nanomaterials and as such have been investigated intensively in the past. The exciton decay dynamics in nanotubes has been studied mainly by transient absorption and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. Since different transitions are monitored with these two techniques, developing a comprehensive model to reconcile different data sets, however, turned out to be a challenge and remarkably, a uniform description seems to remain elusive. In this work, we investigate the exciton decay dynamics in single carbon nanotubes using transient interferometric scattering and time-resolved photoluminescence microscopy with few-exciton detection sensitivity and formulate a unified microscopic model by combining unimolecular exciton decay and ultrafast exciton-exciton annihilation on a time-scale down to 200 fs.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Chemistry and Pharmacy > Department of Chemistry
• Subjects: 500 Science > 540 Chemistry
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• Language: English
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 491502892