Photoluminescence imaging of electronic-impurity-induced exciton quenching in single-walled carbon nanotubes

The electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes can be altered by surface adsorption of electronic impurities or dopants. However, fully understanding the influence of these impurities is difficult because of the inherent complexity of the solution-based colloidal chemistry of nanotubes, and because of a lack of techniques for directly imaging dynamic processes involving these impurities. Here, we show that photoluminescence microscopy can be used to image exciton quenching in semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes during the early stages of chemical doping with two different species. The addition of AuCl₃ leads to localized exciton-quenching sites, which are attributed to a mid-gap electronic impurity level, and the adsorbed species are also found sometimes to be mobile on the surface of the nanotubes. The addition of H₂O₂ leads to delocalized exciton-quenching hole states, which are responsible for long-range photoluminescence blinking, and are also mobile.