Auger recombination and thermalization time are detrimental in reducing the gain threshold of optically pumped semiconductor nanocrystal (NC) lasers for future on-chip nanophotonic devices. Here, we report the design strategy of facet engineering to reduce the gain threshold of amplified spontaneous emission by manyfold in NCs of the same concentration and edge length. We achieved this hallmark result by controlling the Auger recombination rates dominated by processes involving NC volume and thermalization time to the emitting states by optimizing the number of facets from 6 (cube) to 12 (rhombic dodecahedron) and 26 (rhombicuboctahedrons) in CsPbBr NCs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNonresonant optical driving of confined semiconductors can open up exciting opportunities for experimentally realizing strongly interacting photon-dressed (Floquet) states through the optical Stark effect (OSE) for coherent modulation of the exciton state. Here we report the first room-temperature observation of the Floquet biexciton-mediated anomalous coherent excitonic OSE in CsPbBr quantum dots (QDs). Remarkably, the strong exciton-biexciton interaction leads to a coherent red shift and splitting of the exciton resonance as a function of the drive photon frequency, similar to Autler-Townes splitting in atomic and molecular systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe study experimentally and theoretically the intensity-dependent off-resonant ultrafast third-order nonlinear optical response of AsS thin films. At low intensity, we observed saturable absorption with a negative (self-defocusing) nonlinear refractive index (n) which at higher intensity switched over to reverse saturable absorption with a change in the sign of n to positive (self-focusing). Our findings constitute compelling evidence on how to dynamically tune the optical response with the intensity that has its origin in the combined effect of two-photon absorption and Pauli blocking.
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