Abstract
The optical, electrical and mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are largely determined by their structures, and bulk availability of uniform materials is vital for extending their technological applications1. Since they were first prepared2,3, much effort has been directed toward selective synthesis and separation of SWNTs with specific structures. As-prepared samples of chiral SWNTs contain equal amounts of left- and right-handed helical structures4, but little attention has been paid to the separation of these non-superimposable mirror image forms, known as optical isomers. Here, we show that optically active SWNT samples can be obtained by preferentially extracting either right- or left-handed SWNTs from a commercial sample. Chiral ‘gable-type’ diporphyrin molecules bind with different affinities to the left- and right-handed helical nanotube isomers to form complexes with unequal stabilities that can be readily separated. Significantly, the diporphyrins can be liberated from the complexes afterwards, to provide optically enriched SWNTs.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Y. Kawai (Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology) for allowing us to use the CD spectropolarimeter, Y. Nakata and I. Hamagami (Horiba) for taking photoluminescence spectra, T. Mori (Osaka University) for helpful suggestions for CD of SWNTs, N. Yoshimoto, T. Itabashi, S. Yamada (Hitachi) and A. Toshimitsu (Kyoto University) for their encouragement, and M. Uchida (Osaka Prefecture University) for proof-reading the manuscript. This work was financially supported by Integrative Industry-Academia Partnership including Kyoto University, NTT, Pioneer, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Chemical and Rohm.
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X.P., N.K. and A.O. conceived and designed the experiments. T.K. and S.A. provided suggestions on the experiments. X.P. performed most of the experiments and analyses. T. S. contributed to solubilization of SWNTs. X.P. and S.B. carried out the theoretical calculations. N.K. and A.O. co-wrote the paper.
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Peng, X., Komatsu, N., Bhattacharya, S. et al. Optically active single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nature Nanotech 2, 361–365 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.142
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.142
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