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Relaxation dynamics via acoustic phonons in carbon nanotubes
Author(s) -
Köhler Christopher,
Watermann Tobias,
Malic Ermin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.201200404
Subject(s) - phonon , picosecond , relaxation (psychology) , carbon nanotube , condensed matter physics , materials science , scattering , boltzmann equation , thermal conduction , excited state , nanotube , phonon scattering , ballistic conduction in single walled carbon nanotubes , curvature , physics , nanotechnology , laser , optical properties of carbon nanotubes , optics , atomic physics , quantum mechanics , psychology , social psychology , geometry , mathematics , composite material
We have investigated the efficiency of scattering processes through acoustic phonons in semiconducting nanotubes. Based on the density matrix formalism we obtain Boltzmann scattering equations, which give us a microscopic access to the time‐ and momentum‐resolved relaxation dynamics of optically excited carriers. In agreement with a recent experiment [see Dyatlova et al., Nano Lett. 12 , 2249 (2012)], we obtain relaxation times on the picosecond time scale. Here we study the importance of carrier–phonon interaction as a function of probe energy and initial temperature for the exemplary (8,7) nanotube. Furthermore, we calculate the relaxation dynamics for nanotubes with different diameters focusing on the change in the relaxation time with the curvature of the corresponding energetically lowest conduction subband.