Selective destruction of individual single walled carbon nanotubes by laser irradiation

We demonstrate selective burnout of individual carbon nanotubes that are electronically resonant with the incident laser energy. Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy are used to quantify the burnout of nanotubes. The threshold laser power for rapid burnout is found to occur between 0.4 and 0.9 W/μm2. At lower laser powers of 80 mW/μm2, the burnout depends linearly on time, over tens of minutes. Non-resonant nanotubes could not be burned out even with high laser power or long exposure times. This preferential burnout of resonant nanotubes demonstrates the possibility of selective removal of metallic nanotubes from an inhomogeneous sample.