Revealing the ultrafast spontaneous emission in plasmon-enhanced monolayer semiconductor nano-light sources

Abstract

Nanoscale spontaneous light sources are promising alternatives to lasers for high-speed optical communications and interconnections through energy-efficient integrated circuits. Yet, developing the spontaneous light sources faster than lasers is hampered by the detection means (e.g., time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy). Here, by coupling monolayer WSe2 to individual plasmonic nanocavities, we achieved an efficient spontaneous light source with potential ultrafast modulation bandwidth and superior brightness. The ultrafast radiative decay rates can be determined and derived solely from the experimental parameters by combining the coupling strength and the photoluminescence enhancement in a single nanocavity-WSe2 hybrid. As a result, the hybrid light source has a radiative lifetime down to 350 fs, indicating a potential modulation bandwidth up to 440 GHz, which is 10 times of the traditional semiconductor lasers. Furthermore, the quantum yield is enhanced by a factor of over 300-folds up to 20.8% through making full use of the highly confined nanocavity mode. The nanocavity-WSe2 hybrid we built provides a promising approach for constructing high-speed light-emitting devices.