We present recent developments in the synthesis and functional study of non covalently bound porphyrin / carbon nanotubes compounds. The issue of the chemical stability of non covalent compounds is tackled by means of micelle assisted chemistry that allows to enhance the  stacking interaction between the chromophore and the nanotube. Due to the non covalent functionnalization, the nanotube's integrity is preserved and they display bright NIR luminescence. Despite the non covalent binding, the electronic coupling is very strong and leads to ecient energy transfer and PL quenching of the chromophore. This transfer occurs on a subpicosecond time-scale and leads to a near 100% eciency. It allows to uniformly excite a whole set of chiral species with a single wavelength excitation with possible bio labeling applications.