Argonne National Laboratory

Research Highlight | Center for Nanoscale Materials

Nanocavity-enhanced optical emission at telecommunications wavelengths

In a study published in Nano Letters, researchers highlight the versatility of the Si-BP material platform for creating optically active devices in integrated silicon chips.
Schematic of the hybrid device. Light emitted from the nanomaterial couples into, and is enhanced by, the silicon optical resonator. Inset, atomic structure of the few-layer nanomaterial.

Scientific Achievement 

We created a hybrid device composed of a silicon resonator cavity coupled to a layered nanomaterial, phosphorene, that performed as an optical emitter at near-infrared telecommunications wavelengths.

Significance and Impact

There is commercial interest in a silicon-compatible laser for photonic integrated circuits as an optical analog of microelectronics. The work demonstrates a hybrid silicon-nanomaterial platform for creating optically-active devices in integrated silicon chips.

Research Details

  • The nanomaterial properties required to optically emit in the near-infrared telecommunications wavelengths were isolated. 
  • CNM tools: Near-infrared microscope and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors.

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b03037

Download this highlight

Work was performed in part at the Center for Nanoscale Materials. 

About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials
The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.