Phase Transfer Catalysts Drive Diverse Organic Solvent Solubility of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Helically Wrapped by Ionic, Semiconducting Polymers

Use of phase transfer catalysts such as 18-crown-6 enables ionic, linear conjugated poly(2,6-{1,5-bis(3-propoxysulfonicacidsodiumsalt)}naphthylene]ethynylene (PNES) to efficiently disperse single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in multiple organic solvents under standard ultrasonication methods Steady-stale electronic absorption spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveal that these SWNT suspensions are composed almost exclusively of individualized tubes High-resolution TEM and AFM data show that the interaction of PNES with SWNTs in both prom and aprotic organic solvents provides a self-assembled superstructure in which a PNES monolayer helically wraps the nanotube surface with periodic and constant morphology (observed helical pitch length = 102 nm), time-dependent examination of these suspensions indicates that these structures persist in solution over periods that span at least several months Pump probe transient absorption spectroscopy reveals that the excited state lifetimes and exciton binding energies of these well-defined nanotube-semiconducting polymer hybrid structures remain unchanged relative to analogous benchmark data acquired previously for standard sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS)-SWNT suspensions, regardless of solvent These results demonstrate that the use of phase transfer catalysis with ionic semiconducting polymers that helically wrap SWNTs provide well-defined structures that solubulize SWNTs in a wide range of organic solvents while preserving critical nanotube semiconducting and conducting properties