The impact of dimensionality and stoichiometry of CuBr on its coupling to sp2-carbon

A possible coupling of one-dimensional crystal to their template material plays crucial role when its electronic structure is evaluated. Here a comparative study of the interaction between CuBr and sp2-carbon in 1D and 2D structures as probed by X-ray absorption, photoemission and DFT calculations is reported. The 1D system, i.e. a non-stoichiometric CuBr crystal embedded into a single-walled carbon nanotube (CuBr@SWNT) revealed notable hybridization in contrast to a CuBr film deposited on graphene or graphite. CuBr is coupled to the nanotube due to its low dimensionality and strong coordination deficiency of atoms thus forming one-dimensional nanocrystal, which is non-free-standing.