Abstract
Polarization dependence of the optical absorption of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is determined from the investigation of vertically aligned SWNT film for energy range 0.5-6 eV. It is found that UV absorption of SWNTs is made up of two peaks at 4.5 and 5.25 eV, which exhibit remarkable and different dependencies on incident light polarization. We developed an analytical pathway to determine nematic order parameter of a vertically aligned SWNT film utilizing the collinear absorption peak at 4.5 eV, and subsequently determined the bare (i.e. intrinsic) optical absorption cross-sections of SWNTs for both parallel and perpendicular light polarizations.
