Light to heat conversion efficiency of single-walled carbon nanotubes

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) have the potential as light to heat efficiency, recently known as photothermal conversion efficiency (eta), for photothermal therapeutic applications since they exhibit strong absorption in the near-infrared region (NIR). We report experimental studies of light to heat efficiency of two classes of s-SWCNTs, including double chiralities (DC) and many chiralities (MC) of s-SWCNTs. The eta was obtained by using the results from the experimental heating of s-SWCNTs with NIR light at 808 nm. Interestingly, the eta of MC s-SWCNTs was 1.88-fold higher than DC s-SWCNTs, which leads to a 19% decrease in the heating rate of DC compared to the heating rate of MC s-SWCNTs. This study demonstrates that chirality dependence is an essential metric in the heating rate of s-SWCNTs and provides a validated framework to compare the heating capabilities between DC and MC.