Assessment of the Metallicity of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Ensembles at High Purities

The purity of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) ensembles is critical, but assessing the purity in terms of metal vs semiconductor content is challenging at high purities. We describe possible bulk Raman spectroscopy based procedures to assess this metallicity and compare it to absorption procedures. A simple metric for metallicity is the G⁺ band peak intensity ratio at two appropriate wavelengths. Related metallic G^– band area derived metrics extend to higher purities. The G band signal scales linearly over orders of magnitude in concentration. However, the ratio-derived metrics may still be nonlinear because of resonance. Therefore, they break down if the tube diameter distributions differ greatly between samples, and other complications are possible. Additionally, the absolute Raman cross sections for each type of SWCNT can be estimated, and the abundance of semiconductors and metals can be tracked independently. Raman-derived metallicity figures of merit can meaningfully evaluate samples of purities which are not otherwise easily accessible, but there are important limitations to this simple approach to metallicity assessment