Electrically driven single-photon emission from an isolated single molecule

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 580 - 7
• Main Authors: Zhang, Li, Yu, Yun-Jie, Chen, Liu-Guo, Luo, Yang, Yang, Ben, Kong, Fan-Fang, Chen, Gong, Zhang, Yang, Zhang, Qiang, Luo, Yi, Yang, Jin-Long, Dong, Zhen-Chao, Hou, J G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 18.09.2017; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Correlation analysis; Decoupling; Diodes; Electroluminescence; Emission measurements; Emissions control; Emitters; Fluorescence; Photon emission; Quenching; Spacer
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00681-7

Electrically driven molecular light emitters are considered to be one of the promising candidates as single-photon sources. However, it is yet to be demonstrated that electrically driven single-photon emission can indeed be generated from an isolated single molecule notwithstanding fluorescence quenching and technical challenges. Here, we report such electrically driven single-photon emission from a well-defined single molecule located inside a precisely controlled nanocavity in a scanning tunneling microscope. The effective quenching suppression and nanocavity plasmonic enhancement allow us to achieve intense and stable single-molecule electroluminescence. Second-order photon correlation measurements reveal an evident photon antibunching dip with the single-photon purity down to g (0) = 0.09, unambiguously confirming the single-photon emission nature of the single-molecule electroluminescence. Furthermore, we demonstrate an ultrahigh-density array of identical single-photon emitters.Molecular emitters offer a promising solution for single-photon generation. Here, by exploiting electronic decoupling by an ultrathin dielectric spacer and emission enhancement by a resonant plasmonic nanocavity, the authors demonstrate electrically driven single-photon emission from a single molecule.