Rayleigh and Raman Scattering Spectroscopy of Individual Extreme Nanowires

Extreme nanowires are arguably the smallest possible periodic materials. Typically they are defined as wires with diameters of less than 5 nm, and they express behaviours not easily comparable to their larger counterparts. Filling carbon nanotubes allows the creation of extreme nanowires inside the CNTs that would otherwise be chemically and physically unstable. This method can produce nanowires with cross sections as small as single atom. The aim of this project is to determine the electronic structure and vibrational modes of individual extreme nanowires of known physical structure. This will be achieved by developing a system for performing Rayleigh and Resonance Raman spectroscopy on individual suspended and filled CNTs which will also be imaged by high resolution TEM.