We describe a film of highly-aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes that acts as an excellent terahertz linear polarizer. There is virtually no attenuation (strong absorption) when the terahertz polarization is perpendicular (parallel) to the nanotube axis. From the data we calculated the reduced linear dichrosim to be 3, corresponding to a nematic order parameter of 1, which demonstrates nearly perfect alignment as well as intrinsically anisotropic terahertz response of single-walled carbon nanotubes in the film.

Using pre-designed trains of femtosecond optical pulses, we have selectively excited coherent phonons of the radial breathing mode of specific-chirality single-walled carbon nanotubes within an ensemble sample. By analyzing the initial phase of the phonon oscillations, we prove that the tube diameter initially increases in response to ultrafast photoexcitation. Furthermore, from excitation profiles, we demonstrate that an excitonic absorption peak of carbon nanotubes periodically oscillates as a function of time when the tube diameter undergoes radial breathing mode oscillations.PACS numbers: 78.67. Ch,71.35.Ji, Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), hollow onedimensional nanostructures with unique electronic, mechanical, and optical properties, come in a variety of species, or chiralities. Some of them are metallic and others semiconducting, depending on their chiral indices (n,m) [1,2,3]. This diversity, while making them such unusual nanomaterials, often makes it challenging to extract reliable parameters on chirality-dependent properties from experimental results on ensemble samples. Currently, there are world-wide efforts on SWNT purification, separation, and enrichment, producing promising results [4,5,6,7,8]. However, a standard for fabrication of these samples has yet to be established.Here, we present a novel method that allows us to study single-chirality nanotubes even though the sample contains nanotubes of many different chiralities. Specifically, we have utilized the techniques of femtosecond pulse shaping [9,10,11] in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy of SWNTs to selectively excite the coherent lattice vibrations [12,13] of the radial breathing mode (RBM) of specific chiralities. The excitation spectra of such coherent phonons (CPs) provide chirality-specific information on the processes of light absorption, phonon generation, and phonon-induced band structure modulations in unprecedented detail. In particular, the excitation-energy-dependence of the phase of the CP oscillations provides direct, time-domain evidence that band gap oscillations follow the diameter oscillations in the RBM coherent phonon mode.The sample studied was a micelle-suspended SWNT solution, where the SWNTs (HiPco batch HPR 104) were suspended as individuals with sodium cholate [14]. The optical setup was that of standard degenerate pumpprobe spectroscopy, but chirality selectivity was achieved by using multiple pulse trains, with a pulse-to-pulse interval corresponding to the period of a specific RBM mode. Among different species of nanotubes, those having RBM frequencies that are matched to the repetition rate of multiple pulse trains will generate large amplitude coherent oscillations with increasing oscillatory response to each pulse, while others will have diminished coherent responses [15,16,17]. The tailoring of multiple pulse trains from femtosecond pulses was achieved using the pulse-shaping technique described elsewhere [10]. Pulse trains are incident on an ensemble of nanotubes as a pump beam, and coherent RBM osc...

Using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy with pulse shaping techniques, one can generate and detect coherent phonons in chirality-specific semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes. The signals are resonantly enhanced when the pump photon energy coincides with an interband exciton resonance, and analysis of such data provides a wealth of information on the chirality-dependence of light absorption, phonon generation, and phonon-induced band structure modulations. To explain our experimental results, we have developed a microscopic theory for the generation and detection of coherent phonons in single-walled carbon nanotubes using a tight-binding model for the electronic states and a valence force field model for the phonons. We find that the coherent phonon amplitudes satisfy a driven oscillator equation with the driving term depending on photoexcited carrier density. We compared our theoretical results with experimental results on mod 2 nanotubes and found that our model provides satisfactory overall trends in the relative strengths of the coherent phonon signal both within and between different mod 2 families. We also find that the coherent phonon intensities are considerably weaker in mod 1 nanotubes in comparison with mod 2 nanotubes, which is also in excellent agreement with experiment.

We report that terahertz (THz) irradiation of mouse mesenchymal stem cells (mMSCs) with a single-frequency (SF) 2.52 THz laser or pulsed broadband (centered at 10 THz) source results in irradiation specific heterogenic changes in gene expression. The THz effect depends on irradiation parameters such as the duration and type of THz source, and on the degree of stem cell differentiation. Our microarray survey and RT-PCR experiments demonstrate that prolonged broadband THz irradiation drives mMSCs toward differentiation, while 2-hour irradiation (regardless of THz sources) affects genes transcriptionally active in pluripotent stem cells. The strictly controlled experimental environment indicates minimal temperature changes and the absence of any discernable response to heat shock and cellular stress genes imply a non-thermal response. Computer simulations of the core promoters of two pluripotency markers reveal association between gene upregulation and propensity for DNA breathing. We propose that THz radiation has potential for non-contact control of cellular gene expression.