Polarization anisotropy of transient carrier and phonon dynamics in carbon nanotubes

We report on polarization-dependent transient carrier dynamics and coherent phonon oscillations in single-walled carbon nanotubes by determining the relation between the nanotube axis and the incident light polarization. Due to the anisotropic shape of nanotubes, optical absorption strongly depends on the polarization direction. We observed three decay components when the excitation wavelength was resonant with the E 22 transition energy and observed two-decay components under off-resonance conditions. The transient absorption and coherent phonon amplitudes were measured as a function of the angle between the pump and probe polarizations and were analyzed based on the absorption anisotropy of carbon nanotubes.