Carbon nanotube characterization: Optical Visualization of Carbon Nanotubes—a Unifying Linkage Between Microscopic and Spectroscopic Characterization Techniques (Small 18/2010)

The cover picture shows an optical dark-field microscopy image under normal white light illumination of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) deposited on Si/SiO2 substrates spin-casted from an aqueous detergent solution. The opaque bilayered substrate enables the visualization of the 1D nanoscaled objects, revealing the structure of the SWCNT bundles and providing an easily accessible tool for the localization and retrieval of the SWCNTs. This allows convenient characterization by other spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Optical bright- and darkand bright-field visualization techniques are thus greatly facilitating and improving nanotube characterization, as spectroscopic and microscopic information can be directly correlated on the same sample area. For more information, please read the Communication “Optical Visualization of Carbon Nanotubes–A Unifying Linkage between Microscopic and Spectroscopic Characterization Techniques” by A. Hirsch and co-workers, beginning on page 1968.