Chiral selectivity in the charge-transfer bleaching of single-walled carbon-nanotube spectra

The selective reactivity of single-walled carbon nanotubes with organic acceptor molecules was analyzed. Spectral bleaching of the nanotube electronic transitions consistent with an electron-trasfer reaction occurring from the nanotubes to the organic acceptors was observed. The reaction kinetics were found to have strong chiral dependence, with rates being slowest for large-bandgap species and increasing for smaller-bandgap nanotubes. It was shown that the chiral-dependent kinetics can be tuned to effectively freeze the reacted spectra at a fixed chiral distribution.