OVERVIEW ON THE MAJOR RESEARCH ACTIVITIES ON CARBON NANOTUBES BEING DONE IN AMERICA, EUROPE AND ASIA - Carbon Nanotubes: From Bench Chemistry to Promising Biomedical Applications - page 304

Imaging via TEM could be extended to monitor the time-dependent
orientational changes of encapsulated molecules, like those reported for D 5 d -
C 80 and I h -Er 3 N@C 80 fullerenes and demonstrated by aberration-corrected
TEM at real atomic-level resolution. 203 In that particular case, careful analysis
under TEM enabled the unambiguous identiication of the ellipsoidal D 5 d -C 80
fullerene inside CNTs.

11

N +

13

9

A)

a

trans

b

B)

9

NH +

13

11

cis

all- trans

c

C)

N +

Figure 9.36 (a, b) Two isomeric forms of retinal attached onto C 60 molecules: trans (a)
and cis (b). (c) Best-it model of a retinal-C 60 molecule inside an SWCNT, suggesting
that the image in C is of the all- trans isomer. Figure redrawn from Liu et al . 204 See also
Colour Insert.

Another interesting example has been provided by the molecule retinal,
which is associated with conformational changes once it absorbs light. 204
This study was performed in collaboration with Prof. Kataura (reported in
the following section), thus demonstrating the synergistic effect derived from
outstanding scientists. In their investigation, the retinal chromophore was