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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Resonance Raman Spectroscopy of Extreme Nanowires and Other 1D Systems
Published on: April 28, 2016
The optical resonances in carbon nanotubes arise from excitons
Feng Wang1, Gordana Dukovic, Louis E Brus
1Departments of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, 538 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Abstract:
Optical transitions in carbon nanotubes are of central importance for nanotube characterization. They also provide insight into the nature of excited states in these one-dimensional systems. Recent work suggests that light absorption produces strongly correlated electron-hole states in the form of excitons. However, it has been difficult to rule out a simpler model in which resonances arise from the van Hove singularities associated with the one-dimensional band [corrected] structure of the nanotubes. Here, two-photon excitation spectroscopy bolsters the exciton picture. We found binding energies of approximately 400 millielectron volts for semiconducting single-walled nanotubes with 0.8-nanometer diameters. The results demonstrate the dominant role of many-body interactions in the excited-state properties of one-dimensional systems.
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