Bright Silicon Carbide Single-Photon Emitting Diodes at Low Temperatures: Toward Quantum Photonics Applications.

Color centers in silicon carbide have recently emerged as one of the most promising emitters for bright single-photon emitting diodes (SPEDs). It has been shown that, at room temperature, they can emit more than 10 photons per second under electrical excitation. However, the spectral emission properties of color centers in SiC at room temperature are far from ideal.

Single-Photon Sources Based on Novel Color Centers in Silicon Carbide P-I-N Diodes: Combining Theory and Experiment.

Highlights: Theory of electrically driven single-photon sources based on color centers in silicon carbide p–i–n diodes. New method of determining the electron and hole capture cross sections by an optically active point defect (color center) from the experimental measurements of the single-photon electroluminescence rate and second-order coherence. The developed method is based on the measurements at the single defect level.

Hybrid Electro-Optical Pumping of Active Plasmonic Nanostructures.

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) offer a unique opportunity to overcome the diffraction limit of light. However, this opportunity comes at the cost of the strong absorption of the SPP field in a metal, which unavoidably limits the SPP propagation length to a few tens of micrometers in nanostructures with deep-subwavelength mode confinement. The only possibility to avoid the propagation losses is to compensate for them by optical gain in the adjacent active medium.

Bright Single-Photon Emitting Diodes Based on the Silicon-Vacancy Center in AlN/Diamond Heterostructures.

Practical implementation of many quantum information and sensing technologies relies on the ability to efficiently generate and manipulate single-photon photons under ambient conditions. Color centers in diamond, such as the silicon-vacancy (SiV) center, have recently emerged as extremely attractive single-photon emitters for room temperature applications. However, diamond is a material at the interface between insulators and semiconductors.

Electrical Charge State Manipulation of Single Silicon Vacancies in a Silicon Carbide Quantum Optoelectronic Device.

Color centers with long-lived spins are established platforms for quantum sensing and quantum information applications. Color centers exist in different charge states, each of them with distinct optical and spin properties. Application to quantum technology requires the capability to access and stabilize charge states for each specific task.

Superinjection of Holes in Homojunction Diodes Based on Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors.

Electrically driven light sources are essential in a wide range of applications, from indication and display technologies to high-speed data communication and quantum information processing. Wide-bandgap semiconductors promise to advance solid-state lighting by delivering novel light sources. However, electrical pumping of these devices is still a challenging problem.

Lasing threshold of thresholdless and non-thresholdless metal-semiconductor nanolasers.

The recently developed plasmonic and photonic metal-semiconductor nanolasers feature unique properties, such as ultra-small mode volume and footprint, high Purcell factor, and ultra-fast modulation. However, it is often difficult to recognize when the transition to lasing occurs, while the most important feature of laser radiation, i.e.

Superior Sensitivity of Copper-Based Plasmonic Biosensors.

Plasmonic biosensing has been demonstrated to be a powerful technique for quantitative determination of molecular analytes and kinetic analysis of biochemical reactions. However, interfaces of most plasmonic biosensors are made of noble metals, such as gold and silver, which are not compatible with industrial production technologies. This greatly limits biosensing applications beyond biochemical and pharmaceutical research.

Optical constants and structural properties of thin gold films.

We report a comprehensive experimental study of optical and electrical properties of thin polycrystalline gold films in a wide range of film thicknesses (from 20 to 200 nm). Our experimental results are supported by theoretical calculations based on the measured morphology of the fabricated gold films. We demonstrate that the dielectric function of the metal is determined by its structural morphology.

Ultralow-Loss CMOS Copper Plasmonic Waveguides.

Surface plasmon polaritons can give a unique opportunity to manipulate light at a scale well below the diffraction limit reducing the size of optical components down to that of nanoelectronic circuits. At the same time, plasmonics is mostly based on noble metals, which are not compatible with microelectronics manufacturing technologies. This prevents plasmonic components from integration with both silicon photonics and silicon microelectronics.

Full loss compensation in hybrid plasmonic waveguides under electrical pumping.

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) give an opportunity to break the diffraction limit and design nanoscale optical components, however their practical implementation is hindered by high ohmic losses in a metal. Here, we propose a novel approach for efficient SPP amplification under electrical pumping in a deep-subwavelength metal-insulator-semiconductor waveguiding geometry and numerically demonstrate full compensation for the SPP propagation losses in the infrared at an exceptionally low pump current density of 0.8 kA/cm2.

All-nanophotonic NEMS biosensor on a chip.

Integrated chemical and biological sensors give advantages in cost, size and weight reduction and open new prospects for parallel monitoring and analysis. Biosensors based on nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) are the most attractive candidates for the integrated platform. However, actuation and transduction techniques (e.

Surface plasmon polariton amplification upon electrical injection in highly integrated plasmonic circuits.

We propose a very efficient approach for amplification of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a nanoscale waveguiding geometry with strong (∼λ/10) mode confinement. The implemented scheme of electric pumping is based on a single-heterostructure Schottky-barrier diode and has been numerically shown to ensure full compensation of the SPP propagation losses at wavelengths around 3 μm and, moreover, to provide net SPP gain. The presented concept creates the backbone for the implementation of highly integrated large-scale hybrid electronic-plasmonic circuits operating at extremely high speeds and opens the prospects for the realization of integrated coherent SPP sources.

Toward an electrically pumped spaser.

The use of surface plasmon polariton (SPP)-based waveguides can significantly reduce the size of optical interconnects, but the propagation length of SPPs is limited by Joule heating losses and does not exceed a few micrometers. In this paper, we present an SPP amplification scheme that utilizes compact electrical pumping and gives a possibility for designing really compact on-chip waveguides. Moreover, we demonstrate here numerically that this approach can be easily used to design an electrically pumped cw or pulsed spaser.

Surface plasmon polariton amplification in metal-semiconductor structures.

We propose a novel scheme of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) amplification that is based on a minority carrier injection in a Schottky diode. This scheme uses compact electrical pumping instead of bulky optical pumping. Compact size and a planar structure of the proposed amplifier allow one to utilize it in integrated plasmonic circuits and couple it easily to passive plasmonic devices.

Transmission of surface plasmon polaritons through a nanowire array: mechano-optical modulation and motion sensing.

Using the coupled-mode theory, we study the transmission of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) guided by a thin metal film through an array of N identical nanowires, which are parallel to each other and to the surface of the metal film. By varying the parameters of the nanowire array, one can control the intensity of the transmitted SPP. Furthermore, we propose a novel mechano-optical modulation technique.