Optical absorption of carbon nanotube diodes: Strength of the electronic transitions and sensitivity to the electric field polarization

Aim of this work is to model electrostatically doped carbon nanotubes (CNT), which have recently proved to perform as ideal PN diodes, also showing photovoltaic properties. The new model is able to predict the optical absorption of semiconducting CNT as function of size and chirality. We justify theoretically, for the first time, the experimentally observed capability of CNTs to detect and select not only a well defined set of frequencies, as resulting from their discrete band structure, but also the polarization of the incident radiation. The analysis develops from an approach proposed in a recent contribution. The periodic structure of CNTs is formally modeled as a photonic crystal, that is characterized by means of numerical simulators. Longitudinal and transverse components of the electric field are shown to excite distinct interband transitions between well defined energy levels. Equivalently, for a given energy of the incident radiation, absorption may show polarization ratios strongly exceeding unity. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.