Transmittance of single wall carbon nanotubes

The authors have measured the far infrared absorption of single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) ropes at 1.5K and SWNT ropes in polyethylene (PE) over the range 1.5 < T < 300 K. A weak peak is observed at 28 cm{sup -1} at 1.5K for free standing SWNT samples. The frequency and temperature dependence of the peak is consistent with absorption by an E{sub 2g} symmetric, ''squash mode'', SWNT phonon, which is infrared active due to an adsorbate or disorder. The peak frequency for SWNT ropes in PE is at 40 cm{sup -1} and temperature dependent. They attribute the increase in the frequency of the peak for SWNT in PE to the effect of {approx} 0.2GPa of hydrostatic pressure exerted on the SWNT ropes due to the thermal contraction of PE when cooled to low temperatures. Using two independent methods, they estimate that the SWNT may radially buckle at this pressure. The buckling distortion may cause the pressure dependence of the peak frequency. They cannot rule out the possibility that the peak is an absorption onset from adsorbate modes extrinsic to the SWNT or from interband transitions at a small electronic band gap. An effective medium calculation of Drude metal grains in polyethylene gives a frequency dependence consistent with their data, but the model underestimates the strength of scattering by orders of magnitude