Conversion of Classical Light Emission from a Nanoparticle‐Strained WSe2 Monolayer into Quantum Light Emission via Electron Beam Irradiation

Abstract

Solid‐state single photon emitters (SPEs) within atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have recently attracted interest as scalable quantum light sources for quantum photonic technologies. Among TMDs, WSe2 monolayers (MLs) are promising for the deterministic fabrication and engineering of SPEs using local strain fields. The ability to reliably produce isolatable SPEs in WSe2 is currently impeded by the presence of numerous spectrally overlapping states that occur at strained locations. Here nanoparticle (NP) arrays with precisely defined positions and sizes are employed to deterministically create strain fields in WSe2 MLs, thus enabling the systematic investigation and control of SPE formation. Using this platform, electron beam irradiation at NP‐strained locations transforms spectrally overlapped sub‐bandgap emission states into isolatable, anti‐bunched quantum emitters. The dependence of the emission spectra of WSe2 MLs as a function of strain magnitude and exposure time to electron beam irradiation is quantified and provides insight into the mechanism for SPE production. Excitons selectively funnel through strongly coupled sub‐bandgap states introduced by electron beam irradiation, which suppresses spectrally overlapping emission pathways and leads to measurable anti‐bunched behavior. The findings provide a strategy to generate isolatable SPEs in 2D materials with a well‐defined energy range.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Dec 14, 2022
Source ID
10.1002/adma.202208066

Entities

People

  • Albert F. Vong
  • Alexa M Wong
  • Chad Mirkin
  • David D. Xu
  • Dmitry Lebedev
  • Emily A. Weiss
  • Mark Hersam
  • Paul T. Brown
  • Riddhi Ananth

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • National Science Foundation
  • Northwestern University
  • Office of Basic Energy Sciences
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Office of Science
  • Sherman Fairchild Foundation
  • United States Department of Energy

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Directed Energy
  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene
  • Quantum Computing