Encapsulation of organic molecules in carbon nanotubes: role of the van der Waals interactions

International audienceCarbon nanotubes are fascinating nano-objects not only from a fundamental point of view but also with respect to their remarkable properties, holding great potential in new materials design. When combined with organic molecules, these properties can be enhanced or modulated in order to fulfil the demand in domains as diverse as molecular electronics, biomaterials or even construction engineering, to name a few. To adequately conceive these hybrid materials it is essential to fully appreciate the nature of molecule–carbon nanotube interactions. In this review, we will discuss some relevant fundamental and applied research done on encapsulated molecules in carbon nanotubes. We will particularly focus on the weak and van der Waals interactions which rule the molecule–tube coupling. Therefore a small state of the art on the theoretical methods used to describe these interactions is presented here. Then, we will discuss various applications of molecular encapsulation, where we will consider structural, magnetic, charge transfer and transport, and optical properties