Disentanglement of the electronic properties of metallicity-selected single-walled carbon nanotubes

The inherent structure of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) provides them tremendous value as archetypical one-dimensional (1D) solids, which exhibit van Hove singularities in their local density of states, Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior, ballistic transport properties, and in many other aspects, features of 1D quantum systems, which allow the study of fundamental problems. Therefore, unraveling the signature of their peculiar electronic structure as pristine material is a prerequisite for tracing any modification. Here, we show the disentanglement of the unique 1D features and bonding environments in clean metallicity sorted nanotube films. The photoemission and x-ray absorption responses unambiguously reveal how the fine structure in the C1s edge and photoemission valence band separately discerns the SWCNT metallic and semiconducting nature. This has crucial implications for applications allowing for instance finding the limit of maximum conductivity in transparent electrodes or the uniformity of power transistors, among others.