  We have performed polarization-dependent ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy of
a film of aligned single-walled carbon nanotube bundles. By taking into account
imperfect nanotube alignment as well as anisotropic absorption cross sections,
we quantitatively determined distinctly different photo-bleaching dynamics for
polarizations parallel and perpendicular to the tube axis. For perpendicular
polarization, we observe a slow (1.0-1.5 ps) relaxation process, previously
unobserved in randomly-oriented nanotube bundles. We attribute this slower
dynamics to the excitation and relaxation of surface plasmons in the radial
direction of the nanotube bundles.
