Excitons in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and Their Dynamics.

Understanding exciton dynamics in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is essential to unlocking the many potential applications of these materials. This review summarizes recent progress in understanding exciton photophysics and, in particular, exciton dynamics in SWCNTs. We outline the basic physical and electronic properties of SWCNTs, as well as bright and dark transitions within the framework of a strongly bound one-dimensional excitonic model.

Photoinduced charge separation in single-walled carbon nanotube/protein integrated systems.

Zinc-substituted cytochrome c (Zn-cyt c) is noncovalently bound to single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), causing the Zn-cyt c fluorescence to be quenched by up to 95%, primarily due to photoinduced charge transfer. Deposition of Zn-cyt c/SWNT films onto conductive oxides allows for harvesting of photoexcited electrons with an internal quantum efficiency of over 5%.

The influence of continuous vs. pulsed laser excitation on single quantum dot photophysics.

The impact of pulsed versus continuous wave (cw) laser excitation on the photophysical properties of single quantum dots (QDs) has been investigated in an experiment in which all macroscopic variables are identical except the nature of laser excitation. Pulsed excitation exaggerates the effects of photobleaching, results in a lower probability of long ON fluorescence blinking events, and leads to shorter fluorescence lifetimes with respect to cw excitation at the same wavelength and average intensity. Spectral wandering, biexciton quantum yields, and power law exponents that describe fluorescence blinking are largely insensitive to the nature of laser excitation.