(Invited) Understanding Environmental Effects on Carbon Nanotube Fluorescence for Biomedicine

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) transduce subtle changes in the microenvironment via modulation of their near-infrared fluorescence with potential applications in sensing and imaging. Controlled liquid filling in an endohedral volume of SWCNTs modifies the optical properties of SWCNTs. However, the effects of endohedral solvent dielectric on the nanotube fluorescence and their structure property relationship for biomedical applications are largely unexplored. In this talk, we discuss the environmental effects on SWCNT fluorescence to improve the spectral response of SWCNT-based imaging and sensing agents. We analyze a large dataset of hyperspectral single-tube images of diverse SWCNT structures with controlled endohedral filling. We investigate the correlations between SWCNT structure and molecular descriptors of filled molecules to explain spectral homogeneity at a single tube level as well as at an ensemble.