The importance of solvent properties for optical limiting of carbon nanotube dispersions

The optical limiting performances of single-walled carbon nanotube dispersions in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone were enhanced significantly by blending a range of organic solvents or by increasing the temperature of the dispersions up to 100 °C. While both nanotube bundle size and various solvent parameters have an influence on the optical limiting responses, we verified experimentally that the surface tension of the solvent plays a more important role than the viscosity or boiling point; the appropriate solvent properties contribute to the nonlinear scattering dominated optical limiting phenomenon more than the bundle size.