Universal nonresonant absorption in carbon nanotubes

Photoluminescence excitation measurements in semiconducting carbon nanotubes show a systematic nonresonant contribution between the well-known excitonic resonances. Using a global analysis method, we were able to delineate the contribution of each chiral species, including its tiny nonresonant component. By comparison with the recently reported excitonic absorption cross section on the S-22 resonance, we found a universal nonresonant absorbance which turns out to be of the order of one-half of that of an equivalent graphene sheet. This value, as well as the absorption line shape in the nonresonant window, is in excellent agreement with microscopic calculations based on the density-matrix formalism. This nonresonant absorption of semiconducting nanotubes is essentially frequency independent over 0.5-eV-wide windows and reaches approximately the same value between the S-11 and S-22 resonances and between the S-22 and S-33 resonances. In addition, the nonresonant absorption cross section turns out to be the same for all the chiral species we measured in this study. From a practical point of view, this study provides a solid framework for sample content analysis based on photoluminescence studies by targeting specific excitation wavelengths that lead to almost uniform excitation of all the chiral species of a sample within a given diameter range.