Direct Measurement of Strain-Induced Changes in the Band Structure of Carbon Nanotubes

The effect of uniaxial strain on the optical transition energies of single-walled carbon nanotubes with known chiral indices was measured by Rayleigh scattering spectroscopy. Existing theory accurately predicts the trends in the measured strain-induced shifts, but overestimates their magnitude. Modification of the analysis to account for internal sublattice relaxation results in quantitative agreement with experiment.