Optoplasmonics of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Films

An ultrathin film capable of exhibiting material properties across and around two different dimensions by bridging two-dimensionality frameworks, called a trans-dimensional (TD) material, can be an exceptional tool to tune various electronic and optoplasmonic properties of a system that are unattainable from either dimension. Taking an example of the planar periodic arrangement of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) TD films, we semi-analytically calculated their dynamical conductivities and dielectric responses as a function of the incident photon frequency and the SWCNT’s radius using the many-particles Green’s function formalism within the Matsubara frequency technique. The periodic array of SWCNTs has an anisotropic dielectric response, which is almost a constant and the same as that of the host dielectric medium in the perpendicular direction of the alignment of the SWCNT array due to the depolarization effect that SWCNTs have. However, the dielectric response functions depend on the incident photon energy in addition to the film’s thickness, the SWCNT’s sparseness, inhomogeneity, and the SWCNT’s diameter. The energy difference between the resonant absorption peak and the plasmonic peak varies with the thickness of the film. Varying the length of the CNTs, we also observed that the exciton–plasmon coupling strength increases with the increase in length of the SWCNTs. The metallic SWCNT-containing films have comparatively pronounced plasmon resonance peaks at low photon energy than semiconducting SWCNT-containing films. Both metallic and semiconducting SWCNT-consisting films have negative refraction for a wide range of energy, making them good candidates for metamaterials.