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Intrinsic optical bistability of photon avalanching nanocrystals

Nature Photonics volume 19, pages 212–218 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optically bistable materials respond to a single input with two possible optical outputs, contingent on excitation history. Such materials would be ideal for optical switching and memory, but the limited understanding of intrinsic optical bistability (IOB) prevents the development of nanoscale IOB materials suitable for devices. Here we demonstrate IOB in Nd3+-doped KPb2Cl5 avalanching nanoparticles, which switch with high contrast between luminescent and non-luminescent states, with hysteresis characteristic of bistability. We elucidate a non-thermal mechanism in which IOB originates from suppressed non-radiative relaxation in Nd3+ ions and from the positive feedback of photon avalanching, resulting in extreme, >200th-order optical nonlinearities. The modulation of laser pulsing tunes the hysteresis widths, and dual-laser excitation enables transistor-like optical switching. This control over nanoscale IOB establishes avalanching nanoparticles for photonic devices in which light is used to manipulate light.

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Fig. 1: IOB in KPb2Cl5:Nd3+ ANPs.
Fig. 2: Bistable luminescence of KPb2Cl5:Nd3+ ANPs.
Fig. 3: Model of IOB in KPb2Cl5:Nd3+ ANPs.
Fig. 4: Temporal modulation of luminescence hysteresis.
Fig. 5: Photoswitching of ANPs via instability crossing.

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All data in this Article and its Supplementary Information are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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All code used in this paper is available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

A.S. acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 895809 (MONOCLE). X.Q., B.E.C. and E.M.C. were supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under contract no. HR0011257070. Z.Z. and E.M.C. were supported by DARPA contract no. HR001118C0036. B.U. and P.J.S. acknowledge support from DARPA contract no. HR00112220006 and from the National Science Foundation grant no. CHE-2203510. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231 through the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Electron microscopy (X.Q., P.E. and E.M.C.) was funded in part under the same DOE contract through the BES Materials Sciences and Engineering Division within the KC22ZH program. Work at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (D.J.) was financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under project no. INCLINA PID2023-146775OB-I00 and by the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (S2022/BMD-7403 RENIM-CM).

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Author notes

  1. Artiom Skripka

    Present address: Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Artiom Skripka, Zhuolei Zhang, Xiao Qi, Peter Ercius, Bruce E. Cohen & Emory M. Chan

  2. Nanomaterials for Bioimaging Group, Departamento de Física de Materiales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Artiom Skripka & Daniel Jaque

  3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Zhuolei Zhang

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, NY, USA

    Benedikt Ursprung & P. James Schuck

  5. Division of Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Bruce E. Cohen

  6. Institute for Advanced Research in Chemical Sciences, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Daniel Jaque

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Contributions

A.S., D.J. and E.M.C. designed and conceptualized the research. B.E.C., P.J.S., D.J. and E.M.C. directed the study. A.S. performed the optical characterization experiments, numerical simulations and data analysis. X.Q. and Z.Z. synthesized the nanoparticles. X.Q. and P.E. performed the electron microscopy imaging and analysis. B.U. automated the optical data acquisition. A.S. and E.M.C. wrote the original manuscript with B.E.C., P.J.S. and D.J. All authors discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bruce E. Cohen, P. James Schuck, Daniel Jaque or Emory M. Chan.

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Competing interests

A.S., Z.Z., B.E.C., P.J.S. and E.M.C. have submitted a United States patent application (#18/908,917) under review that describes the synthesis and application of low-phonon-energy nanoparticles based on alkali lead halides.

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Nature Photonics thanks Xiaogang Liu, Ute Resch-Genger and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–23, Tables 1–7, Notes 1–3, Discussion 1, Materials and methods and References.

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Skripka, A., Zhang, Z., Qi, X. et al. Intrinsic optical bistability of photon avalanching nanocrystals. Nat. Photon. 19, 212–218 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01577-x

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