Kotbu

Polymer-wrapped SWNTs were functionalized with a range of commercially available aryl compounds (2-iodoaniline, 2-bromoaniline, 2-fluoroaniline, 5-fluoro-2-iodoaniline, 2-iodophenol, thiophenol, indole; used as received from Sigma Aldrich, ≥97%). For a step-by-step protocol, refer to Supplementary Methods 1. Briefly, an appropriate amount of aryl reagent was dissolved in toluene to achieve a final reaction concentration of 29.30 mmol L⁻¹. DMSO (anhydrous) and KO^tBu (Sigma Aldrich, 98%) dissolved in THF (anhydrous) were added to this solution. Finally, an enriched SWNT dispersion in toluene was added to the mixture such that the SWNT concentration in the reaction mixture corresponded to an optical density of 0.3 cm⁻¹ at the E₁₁ transition. The final solvent composition was 83.3 : 8.3 : 8.3 vol-% toluene/DMSO/THF. Functionalization was performed in the dark or under illumination with UV-light (LED SOLIS-365C, Thorlabs, 365 nm, 1.9 mW mm⁻²) at room temperature. The reaction was stopped after a given time by vacuum filtration of the reaction mixture through a PTFE membrane filter (0.1 μm pore size). The collected SWNTs were washed with methanol and toluene to remove unreacted reagents and side products. The resulting filter cake was redispersed by bath sonication in toluene with fresh wrapping polymer for stabilization.