Single-walled carbon nanotubes have unique optical properties as a result of their one-dimensional structure. Not only do they exhibit strong polarization for both absorption and emission, large exciton binding energies allow for room-temperature excitonic luminescence.
Furthermore, their emission is in the telecom-wavelengths and they can be directly synthesized on silicon substrates, providing new opportunities for nanoscale photonics and optoelectronics.
Here we discuss the use of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes for generation, manipulation, and detection of light on a chip. Their emission properties can be controlled by coupling to silicon photonic structures such as photonic crystal microcavities [1]. Simultaneous photoluminescence and photocurrent measurements show that excitons can dissociate spontaneously [2], enabling photodetection at low bias voltages despite the large binding energies. More recently, we have found that alternating gate-voltages can generate optical pulse trains from individual nanotubes [3]. Ultimately, these results may be combined to achieve further control over photons at the nanoscale.
[1] R. Miura, S. Imamura, R. Ohta, A. Ishii, X. Liu, T. Shimada, S.
Iwamoto, Y. Arakawa, Y. K. Kato, Nature Commun. 5, 5580 (2014).
[2] Y. Kumamoto, M. Yoshida, A. Ishii, A. Yokoyama, T. Shimada, Y. K.
Kato, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 117401 (2014).
