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arXiv · 1507.08461

Spontaneous hot-electron light emission from electron-fed optical antennas

Mickael Buret·Alexander V. Uskov·Jean Dellinger·Nicolas Cazier·Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil·Johann Berthelot·Igor V. Smetanin·Igor E. Protsenko·Gérard Colas-des-Francs·Alexandre Bouhelier
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Abstract

Nanoscale electronics and photonics are among the most promising research areas providing functional nano-components for data transfer and signal processing. By adopting metal-based optical antennas as a disruptive technological vehicle, we demonstrate that these two device-generating technologies can be interfaced to create an electronically-driven self-emitting unit. This nanoscale plasmonic transmitter operates by injecting electrons in a contacted tunneling antenna feedgap. Under certain operating conditions, we show that the antenna enters a highly nonlinear regime in which the energy of the emitted photons exceeds the quantum limit imposed by the applied bias. We propose a model based upon the spontaneous emission of hot electrons that correctly reproduces the experimental findings. The electron-fed optical antennas described here are critical devices for interfacing electrons and photons, enabling thus the development of optical transceivers for on-chip wireless broadcasting of information at the nanoscale.

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Mickael Buret, Alexander V. Uskov, Jean Dellinger, Nicolas Cazier, Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil, Johann Berthelot, Igor V. Smetanin, Igor E. Protsenko, Gérard Colas-des-Francs, Alexandre Bouhelier. 2015-07-30. Spontaneous hot-electron light emission from electron-fed optical antennas. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01861

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