Antenna-coupled photon emission from hexagonal boron nitride tunnel junctions
Source abstract
Abstract
The ultrafast conversion of electrical signals to optical signals at the nanoscale is of fundamental interest for data processing, telecommunication and optical interconnects. However, the modulation bandwidths of semiconductor light-emitting diodes are limited by the spontaneous recombination rate of electron-hole pairs, and the footprint of electrically driven ultrafast lasers is too large for practical on-chip integration. A metal-insulator-metal tunnel junction approaches the ultimate size limit of electronic devices and its operating speed is fundamentally limited only by the tunnelling time. Here, we study the conversion of electrons (localized in vertical gold-hexagonal boron nitride-gold tunnel junctions) to free-space photons, mediated by resonant slot antennas. Optical antennas efficiently bridge the size mismatch between nanoscale volumes and far-field radiation and strongly enhance the electron-photon conversion efficiency. We achieve polarized, directional and resonantly enhanced light emission from inelastic electron tunnelling and establish a novel platform for studying the interaction of electrons with strongly localized electromagnetic fields.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research · Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices · Quantum and electron transport phenomena
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (54)
Show source-provided references
1. Bharadwaj, P., Deutsch, B. & Novotny, L. Optical antennas. Adv. Opt. Phot. 1, 438–483 (2009).10.1364/AOP.1.000438 ↗
2. Alù, A. & Engheta, N. Input impedance, nanocircuit loading, and radiation tuning of optical nanoantennas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 043901 (2008).10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.043901 ↗
3. Greffet, J.-J., Laroche, M. & Marquier, F. Impedance of a nanoantenna and a single quantum emitter. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 117701 (2010).10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.117701 ↗
4. Novotny, L. & van Hulst, N. F. Antennas for light. Nature Photon. 5, 83–90 (2011).10.1038/nphoton.2010.237 ↗
5. Biagioni, P., Huang, J.-S. & Hecht, B. Nanoantennas for visible and infrared radiation. Rep. Prog. Phys. 75, 024402 (2012).10.1088/0034-4885/75/2/024402 ↗
6. Schuller, J. A. et al. Plasmonics for extreme light concentration and manipulation. Nature Mater. 9, 193–204 (2010).10.1038/nmat2630 ↗
7. Mühlschlegel, P., Eisler, H.-J., Martin, O. J. F., Hecht, B. & Pohl, D. W. Resonant optical antennas. Science 308, 1607–1609 (2005).10.1126/science.1111886 ↗
8. Curto, A. G. et al. Unidirectional emission of a quantum dot coupled to a nanoantenna. Science 329, 930–933 (2010).10.1126/science.1191922 ↗
9. Kinkhabwala, A. et al. Large single-molecule fluorescence enhancements produced by a bowtie nanoantenna. Nature Photon. 3, 654–657 (2009).10.1038/nphoton.2009.187 ↗
10. Atwater, H. A. & Polman, A. Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices. Nature Mater. 9, 205–213 (2010).10.1038/nmat2629 ↗
11. Tang, L. et al. Nanometre-scale germanium photodetector enhanced by a near-infrared dipole antenna. Nature Photon. 2, 226–229 (2008).10.1038/nphoton.2008.30 ↗
12. Knight, M. W., Sobhani, H., Nordlander, P. & Halas, N. J. Photodetection with active optical antennas. Science 332, 702–704 (2011).10.1126/science.1203056 ↗
13. Huang, K. C. et al. Electrically driven subwavelength optical nanocircuits. Nature Photon. 8, 244–249 (2014).10.1038/nphoton.2014.2 ↗
14. Lambe, J. & McCarthy, S. L. Light emission from inelastic electron tunneling. Phys. Rev. Lett. 37, 923 (1976).10.1103/PhysRevLett.37.923 ↗
15. Kirtley, J., Theis, T. & Tsang, J. Light emission from tunnel junctions on gratings. Phys. Rev. B 24, 5650 (1981).10.1103/PhysRevB.24.5650 ↗
16. Sparks, P., Sjodin, T., Reed, B. & Stege, J. Light emission from the slow mode of tunnel junctions on short period diffraction gratings. Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 2668 (1992).10.1103/PhysRevLett.68.2668 ↗
17. Gimzewski, J. K., Reihl, B., Coombs, J. H. & Schlittler, R. R. Photon emission with the scanning tunneling microscope. Z. Phys. B 72, 497–501 (1988).10.1007/BF01314531 ↗
18. Schull, G., Néel, N., Johansson, P. & Berndt, R. Electron–plasmon and electron–electron interactions at a single atom contact. Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 057401 (2009).10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.057401 ↗
19. Chen, C., Bobisch, C. A. & Ho, W. Visualization of Fermi's Golden Rule through imaging of light emission from atomic silver chains. Science 325, 981–985 (2009).10.1126/science.1174592 ↗
20. Bharadwaj, P., Bouhelier, A. & Novotny, L. Electrical excitation of surface plasmons. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 226802 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.226802 ↗
21. Zhang, Y. et al. Edge scattering of surface plasmons excited by scanning tunneling microscopy. Opt. Express 21, 13938–13948 (2013).10.1364/OE.21.013938 ↗
22. Davis, L. Theory of surface-plasmon excitation in metal–insulator–metal tunnel junctions. Phys. Rev. B 16, 2482 (1977).10.1103/PhysRevB.16.2482 ↗
23. Rendell, R. W. & Scalapino, D. J. Surface plasmons confined by microstructures on tunnel junctions. Phys. Rev. B 24, 3276–3294 (1981).10.1103/PhysRevB.24.3276 ↗
24. Johansson, P., Monreal, R. & Apell, P. Theory for light emission from a scanning tunneling microscope. Phys. Rev. B 42, 9210–9213 (1990).10.1103/PhysRevB.42.9210 ↗
25. Persson, B. N. J. & Baratoff, A. Theory of photon emission in electron tunneling to metallic particles,. Phys. Rev. B 68, 3224–3227 (1992).
26. Aizpurua, J., Apell, S. P. & Berndt, R. Role of tip shape in light emission from the scanning tunneling microscope. Phys. Rev. B 62, 2065–2073 (2000).10.1103/PhysRevB.62.2065 ↗
27. Landauer, R. & Martin, T. Barrier interaction time in tunneling. Rev. Mod. Phys. 66, 217 (1994).10.1103/RevModPhys.66.217 ↗
28. Shafir, D. et al. Resolving the time when an electron exits a tunnelling barrier. Nature 485, 343–346 (2012).10.1038/nature11025 ↗
29. Ward, D. R., Hüser, F., Pauly, F., Cuevas, J. C. & Natelson, D. Optical rectification and field enhancement in a plasmonic nanogap. Nature Nanotech. 5, 732–736 (2010).10.1038/nnano.2010.176 ↗
30. Lee, G.-H. et al. Electron tunneling through atomically flat and ultrathin hexagonal boron nitride. Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 243114 (2011).10.1063/1.3662043 ↗
31. Britnell, L. et al. Electron tunneling through ultrathin boron nitride crystalline barriers. Nano Lett. 12, 1707–1710 (2012).10.1021/nl3002205 ↗
32. Watanabe, K., Taniguchi, T. & Kanda, H. Direct-bandgap properties and evidence for ultraviolet lasing of hexagonal boron nitride single crystal. Nature Mater. 3, 404–409 (2004).10.1038/nmat1134 ↗
33. Koerkamp, K. J. K., Enoch, S., Segerink, F. B., van Hulst, N. F. & Kuipers, L. Strong influence of hole shape on extraordinary transmission through periodic arrays of subwavelength holes. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 183901 (2004).10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.183901 ↗
34. Garcia-Vidal, F., Moreno, E., Porto, J. & Martin-Moreno, L. Transmission of light through a single rectangular hole. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 103901 (2005).10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.103901 ↗
35. Gordon, R. et al. Strong polarization in the optical transmission through elliptical nanohole arrays. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 037401 (2004).10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.037401 ↗
36. Miyazaki, H. T. & Kurokawa, Y. Squeezing visible light waves into a 3-nm-thick and 55-nm-long plasmon cavity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 097401 (2006).10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.097401 ↗
37. Chen, X. et al. Atomic layer lithography of wafer-scale nanogap arrays for extreme confinement of electromagnetic waves. Nature Commun. 4, 2361 (2013).10.1038/ncomms3361 ↗
38. Nagpal, P., Lindquist, N. C., Oh, S.-H. & Norris, D. J. Ultrasmooth patterned metals for plasmonics and metamaterials. Science 325, 594–597 (2009).10.1126/science.1174655 ↗
39. Huang, J. et al. Atomically flat single-crystalline gold nanostructures for plasmonic nanocircuitry. Nature Commun. 1, 150 (2010).10.1038/ncomms1143 ↗
40. Novotny, L. & Hecht, B. Principles of Nano-Optics 2nd edn (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012).10.1017/CBO9780511794193 ↗
41. Yang, H. U. et al. Accessing the optical magnetic near-field through Babinet's principle. ACS Photon. 1, 894–899 (2014).10.1021/ph5001988 ↗
42. Schneider, N. L., Johansson, P. & Berndt, R. Hot electron cascades in the scanning tunneling microscope. Phys. Rev. B 87, 045409 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevB.87.045409 ↗
43. Coenen, T. & Polman, A. Optical properties of single plasmonic holes probed with local electron beam excitation. ACS Nano 8, 7350–7358 (2014).10.1021/nn502469r ↗
44. Bigourdan, F., Marquier, F., Hugonin, J.-P. & Greffet, J.-J. Design of highly efficient metallo-dielectric patch antennas for single-photon emission. Opt. Express 22, 2337–2347 (2014).10.1364/OE.22.002337 ↗
45. Akselrod, G. M. et al. Probing the mechanisms of large Purcell enhancement in plasmonic nanoantennas. Nature Photon. 8, 835–840 (2014).10.1038/nphoton.2014.228 ↗
46. Khurgin, J. B. & Sun, G. In search of the elusive lossless metal. Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 181102 (2010).10.1063/1.3425890 ↗
47. Boltasseva, A. & Atwater, H. A. Low-loss plasmonic metamaterials. Science 331, 290–291 (2011).10.1126/science.1198258 ↗
48. Tassin, P., Koschny, T., Kafesaki, M. & Soukoulis, C. M. A comparison of graphene, superconductors and metals as conductors for metamaterials and plasmonics. Nature Photon. 6, 259–264 (2012).10.1038/nphoton.2012.27 ↗
49. Geim, A. & Grigorieva, I. Van der waals heterostructures. Nature 499, 419–425 (2013).10.1038/nature12385 ↗
50. Taniguchi, T. & Watanabe, K. Synthesis of high-purity boron nitride single crystals under high pressure by using Ba–BN solvent. J. Cryst. Growth 303, 525–529 (2007).10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2006.12.061 ↗
51. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films. Science 306, 666–669 (2004).10.1126/science.1102896 ↗
52. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Two-dimensional atomic crystals. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 10451 (2005).10.1073/pnas.0502848102 ↗
53. Levinshtein, M. E., Rumyantsev, S. L. & Shur, M. S. Properties of Advanced Semiconductor Materials: GaN, AIN, InN, BN, SiC, SiGe (Wiley, 2001).
54. Johnson, P. B. & Christy, R. W. Optical constants of the noble metals. Phys. Rev. B 6, 4370–4379 (1972).10.1103/PhysRevB.6.4370 ↗