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Electrical control of optical emitter relaxation pathways enabled by graphene

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 281–287 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Controlling the energy flow processes and the associated energy relaxation rates of a light emitter is of fundamental interest and has many applications in the fields of quantum optics, photovoltaics, photodetection, biosensing and light emission. Advanced dielectric, semiconductor and metallic systems have been developed to tailor the interaction between an emitter and its environment. However, active control of the energy flow from an emitter into optical, electronic or plasmonic excitations has remained challenging. Here, we demonstrate in situ electrical control of the relaxation pathways of excited erbium ions, which emit light at the technologically relevant telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 μm. By placing the erbium at a few nanometres distance from graphene, we modify the relaxation rate by more than a factor of three, and control whether the emitter decays into electron–hole pairs, emitted photons or graphene near-infrared plasmons, confined to <15 nm from the graphene sheet. These capabilities to dictate optical energy transfer processes through electrical control of the local density of optical states constitute a new paradigm for active (quantum) photonics and can be applied using any combination of light emitters and two-dimensional materials.

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Figure 1: Concept and device for electrically controllable energy relaxation pathways.
Figure 2: Electrically controlling spontaneous emission.
Figure 3: Comparison of experiment and theory.
Figure 4: Strong field confinement: plasmon launching at 1.5 μm.

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Acknowledgements

K.J.T. thanks NWO for a Rubicon fellowship. F.H.L.K. acknowledges support by the Fundacio Cellex Barcelona, the ERC Career integration grant 294056 (GRANOP), the ERC starting grant 307806 (CarbonLight) and support by the E.C. under Graphene Flagship (contract no. CNECT-ICT-604391). F.J.G.d.A. acknowledges support from the Graphene Flagship CNECT-ICT-604391 and FP7-ICT-2013-613024-GRASP. The work at MIT has been supported by AFOSR grant number FA9550-11-1-0225, a Packard Fellowship, and the MISTI-Spain program. This work made use of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Shared Experimental Facilities supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF; award no. DMR-0819762) and of Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems, supported by the NSF (grant ECS-0335765). P.G. thanks ANR project RAMACO (No. 12-BS08-0015-01).

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Author notes

  1. L. Orona, A. Ferrier and M. Badioli: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICFO - Institut de Ciéncies Fotóniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, Castelldefels (Barcelona) 08860, Spain

    K. J. Tielrooij, M. Badioli, G. Navickaite, S. Coop, S. Nanot, L. Gaudreau, H. de Riedmatten, F. J. García de Abajo & F. H. L. Koppens

  2. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    L. Orona, Q. Ma & P. Jarillo-Herrero

  3. PSL Research University, Chimie ParisTech - CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, 75005 Paris, France

    A. Ferrier & P. Goldner

  4. Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, 75005 Paris, France

    A. Ferrier

  5. Physics and Astronomy Department and CNISM, University of Padova, via Marzolo 8 I-35131 Padova, Italy,

    B. Kalinic & T. Cesca

  6. Graphenea SA, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastiían, Spain

    A. Centeno, A. Pesquera & A. Zurutuza

  7. ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Passeig Lluís Companys, 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain

    H. de Riedmatten & F. J. García de Abajo

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Contributions

F.H.L.K., P.J-H., F.J.G.d.A., H.d.R. and K.J.T. conceived the experiment. K.J.T., L.O., M.B., S.C. and L.G. carried out the experiments. K.J.T., L.O., F.J.G.d.A., P.J-H. and F.H.L.K. performed the data analysis. A.F., B.K., T.C., A.C., A.P., A.Z. and P.G. provided materials. G.N., M.B., L.O., S.N. and Q.M. fabricated the samples. F.J.G.d.A. developed the theoretical models. K.J.T., F.H.L.K., P.J-H. and F.J.G.d.A. wrote the manuscript with the participation of all authors.

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Correspondence to F. H. L. Koppens.

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Tielrooij, K., Orona, L., Ferrier, A. et al. Electrical control of optical emitter relaxation pathways enabled by graphene. Nature Phys 11, 281–287 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3204

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