Herman, Lihong2013-09-052018-05-272013-05-26bibid: 8267394https://hdl.handle.net/1813/34040The development and application of optical imaging tools and probing techniques have been the subject of exciting research. These tools and techniques allow for non-invasive, simple sample preparation and relatively fast measurement of electronic and optical properties. They also provided crucial information on optoelectronic device application and development. As the field of nanostructure research emerged, they were modified and employed to understand various properties of these structures at the diffraction limit of light. Carbon nanotubes, up to hundreds of micrometers long and several nanometers thin, are perfect for testing and demonstrating newly-developed optical measurement platforms for individual nanostructures, due to their heterogeneous nature. By employing two quantitative imaging techniques, wide-field on-chip Rayleigh scattering spectroscopy and spatial modulation confocal absorption microscopy, we investigate the optical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes. These techniques allow us to obtain the Rayleigh scattering intensity, absolute absorption cross section, spatial resolution, and spectral information of single-walled carbon nanotubes. By probing the optical resonance of hundreds of single-walled carbon nanotubes in a single measurement, the first technique utilizes Rayleigh scattering mechanism to obtain the chirality of carbon nanotubes. The second technique, by using high numerical aperture oil immersion objective lenses, we measure the absolute absorption cross section of a singlewalled carbon nanotube. Combining all the quantitative values obtained from these techniques, we observe various interesting and recently discovered physical behaviors, such as long range optical coupling and universal optical conductivity on resonance, and demonstrate the possibility of accurate quantitative absorption measurement for individual structures at nanometer scale.en-USexcitoncarbon nanotubesabsorptioin cross sectiondissertation or thesis