Leveraging Nanocavity Harmonics for Control of Optical Processes in 2D Semiconductors

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 15; no. 5; pp. 3578 - 3584
• Main Authors: Akselrod, Gleb M, Ming, Tian, Argyropoulos, Christos, Hoang, Thang B, Lin, Yuxuan, Ling, Xi, Smith, David R, Kong, Jing, Mikkelsen, Maiken H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 13.05.2015
• Subjects: charge transport; Harmonics; Molybdenum disulfide; NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; Nanostructure; Optical data processing; optics; Photoluminescence; photosynthesis (natural and artificial); Plasmonics; Semiconductors; solar (photovoltaic); solid state lighting; synthesis (novel materials); synthesis (scalable processing); synthesis (self-assembly); Two dimensional; photoluminescence enhancement; 2D semiconductors; Plasmonics; nanocube; nanocavity; MoS2
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01062

Optical cavities with multiple tunable resonances have the potential to provide unique electromagnetic environments at two or more distinct wavelengthscritical for control of optical processes such as nonlinear generation, entangled photon generation, or photoluminescence (PL) enhancement. Here, we show a plasmonic nanocavity based on a nanopatch antenna design that has two tunable resonant modes in the visible spectrum separated by 350 nm and with line widths of ∼60 nm. The importance of utilizing two resonances simultaneously is demonstrated by integrating monolayer MoS2, a two-dimensional semiconductor, into the colloidally synthesized nanocavities. We observe a 2000-fold enhancement in the PL intensity of MoS2which has intrinsically low absorption and small quantum yieldat room temperature, enabled by the combination of tailored absorption enhancement at the first harmonic and PL quantum-yield enhancement at the fundamental resonance.