Spectroscopy of Individual Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and their Synthesis via Chemical Vapor Deposition

A chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor was designed, built and used to grow vertically and horizontally aligned carbon nanotube arrays. The as-grown nanotubes were investigated on a single tube level using nearinfrared photoluminescence (PL) microscopy as well as Raman, atomic force and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy of individual, semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), a specialized PL set-up was constructed.