We have assigned the chirality of the internal tubes of double walled carbon nanotubes grown by catalytic chemical vapor deposition using the high sensitivity of the radial breathing (RB) mode in inelastic light-scattering experiments. The deduced chirality corresponds to several semiconducting and only two metallic internal tubes. The RB modes are systematically shifted to higher energies when compared to theoretical values. The difference between experimental and theoretical energies of the RB modes of metallic tubes and semiconducting tubes are discussed in terms of the reduced interlayer distance between the internal and the external tube and electronic resonance effects. We find several pairs of RB modes corresponding to different diameters of internal and external tubes.

• Received 15 November 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.65.161404