Experimental Kataura Plot in Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) comprise a family of more than 400 structures characterized by different chiral indices n-m, each having a distinct electronic structure that can be either metallic or semiconducting. An outstanding question is how the physical properties, such as optical transitions, vary with the exact nanotube structures. By combining TEM diffraction and Rayleigh scattering spectroscopy on the same individual nanotubes, we determine independently the chiral indices and optical transitions of over 170 single-walled nanotubes. These data permit us to create an experimental Kataura plot for single-walled carbon nanotubes.