Ge$_{1-x}$Sn$_x$ semiconductors hold the premise for large-scale, monolithic mid-infrared photonics and optoelectronics. However, despite the successful demonstration of several Ge$_{1-x}$Sn$_x$-based photodetectors and emitters, key fundamental properties of this material system are yet to be fully explored and understood. In particular, little is known about the role of the material properties in controlling the recombination mechanisms and their consequences on the carrier lifetime. Evaluating the latter is in fact fraught with large uncertainties that are exacerbated by the difficulty to investigate narrow bandgap semiconductors. To alleviate these limitations, herein we demonstrate that the radiative carrier lifetime can be obtained from straightforward excitation power- and temperature- dependent photoluminescence measurements. To this end, a theoretical framework is introduced to simulate the measured spectra by combining the band structure calculations from the k.p theory and the envelope function approximation (EFA) to estimate the absorption and spontaneous emission. Based on this model, the temperature-dependent emission from Ge$_{0.83}$Sn$_{0.17}$ samples at a biaxial compressive strain of $-1.3\%$ was investigated. The simulated spectra reproduce accurately the measured data thereby enabling the evaluation of the steady-state radiative carrier lifetimes, which are found in the 3-22 ns range for temperatures between 10 and 300 K at an excitation power of 0.9 kW/cm$^2$. For a lower power of 0.07 kW/cm$^2$, the obtained lifetime has a value of 1.9 ns at 4 K. The demonstrated approach yielding the radiative lifetime from simple emission spectra will provide valuable inputs to improve the design and modeling of Ge$_{1-x}$Sn$_x$-based devices.
Spatio-temporal control of ultrafast plasmon resonances has gained research interest in recent years because of their tremendous implications in nonlinear optics and ultrafast quantum technology. In particular, the lifetime of ultrashort plasmon oscillations has become a debatable subject in recent experimental and theoretical studies to fulfill the future challenges concerning their effective employment in the vast applications of the plasmonic industry. Here, we examined the temporal properties of nonlinear plasmonic modes in metal nanostructures by interacting them with quantum objects in t…
Polycrystalline PbSe for mid-wave IR (MWIR) photodetector is an attractive material option due to high operating/ambient temperature operation and relatively easy and cheap fabrication process, making it candidate for low-power and small footprint applications such as internet-of-thing (IoT) sensors and deployment on mobile platforms due to reduced/removed active cooling requirements. However, there are many material challenges that reduce the detectivity of these detectors. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to improve upon this metric by externally modulating the lifetime of co…
Ultrafast emission rates obtained from quantum emitters coupled to plasmonic nanoantennas have recently opened fundamentally new possibilities in quantum information and sensing applications. Plasmonic nanoantennas greatly improve the brightness of quantum emitters by dramatically shortening their fluorescence lifetimes. Gap plasmonic nanocavities that support strongly confined modes are of particular interest for such applications. We demonstrate single-photon emission from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds coupled to nanosized gap plasmonic cavities with internal mode volumes abo…
This paper demonstrates broadband and wide-temperature-range thermal emitter with super-hydrophobicity based on an oxidized high-entropy film. The annealed (NiCuCrFeSi)O high-entropy film can serve as a mid-infrared emitter due to its three characteristics: i) High blackbody-like emission in a broadband mid-infrared region from 2.5 um to 20 um; ii) High emittance (more than 90%) in a wide temperature range from 300 K to 1000 K; iii) Super-hydrophobicity with high contact angle (CA) of 151 degree and low title angle (TA) of 5 degree. These characteristics originate from the recrystallization of…
Optically active defects in diamond are widely used as bright single-photon sources for quantum sensing, computing, and communication. For many applications, it is useful to place the emitter close to the diamond surface, where the radiative properties of the emitter are strongly modified by its dielectric environment. It is well-known that the radiative power from an electric dipole decreases as the emitter approaches an interface with a lower-index dielectric, leading to an increase in the radiative lifetime. For emitters in crystalline solids, modeling of this effect needs to take into acco…
A robust process for fabricating intrinsic single-photon emitters in silicon nitride has been recently established. These emitters show promise for quantum applications due to room-temperature operation and monolithic integration with the technologically mature silicon nitride photonics platform. Here, the fundamental photophysical properties of these emitters are probed through measurements of optical transition wavelengths, linewidths, and photon antibunching as a function of temperature from 4.2K to 300K. Important insight into the potential for lifetime-limited linewidths is provided throu…
Biluminescent organic emitters show simultaneous fluorescence and phosphorescence at room temperature. So far, the optimization of the room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) in these materials has drawn the attention of research. However, the continuous wave operation of these emitters will consequently turn them into systems with vastly imbalanced singlet and triplet populations, which is due to the respective excited state lifetimes. This study reports on the exciton dynamics of the biluminophore NPB (N,N-di(1-naphthyl)-N,N-diphenyl-(1,1-biphenyl)-4,4-diamine). In the extreme case, the singl…
Controllable strong interactions between a nanocavity and a single emitter is important to manipulating optical emission in a nanophotonic systems but challenging to achieve. Here a three-dimensional DNA origami, named as DNA rack (DR) is proposed and demonstrated to deterministically and precisely assemble single emitters within ultra-small plasmonic nanocavities formed by closely coupled gold nanorods (AuNRs). The DR uniquely possesses a saddle shape with two tubular grooves that geometrically allows a snug fit and linearly align two AuNRs with a bending angle <10°. It also includes a spacer…
Dynamic radiative cooling with variable emissive power is experimentally demonstrated in this study by a wavelength-selective tunable metafilm emitter, which consists of an opaque aluminum film, a sputtered silicon spacer, and a thermochromic vanadium dioxide (VO2) layer fabricated by a furnace oxidation method. The temperature-dependent spectral emittance, experimentally obtained from spectral reflectance measurements, clearly shows a pronounced emission peak around 10 um wavelength when the VO2 experiences an insulator-to-metal phase transition near 65C. The tunable metafilm emitter achieves…
Supercontinuum sources are all-fiber pulsed laser-driven systems that provide high power spectral densities within ultra-broadband spectral ranges. The tailored process of generating broadband, bright, and spectrally flat supercontinua -- through a complex interplay of linear and non-linear processes -- has been recently pushed further towards longer wavelengths and has evolved enough to enter the field of mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy. In this work, we review the current state and perspectives of this technology that offers laser-like emission properties and instantaneous broadband spect…
Carrier lifetime measurements reveal that, contrary to common expectations, the high-current non-radiative recombination (droop) in III-Nitride light emitters is comprised of two contributions which scale with the cube of the carrier density: an intrinsic recombination --most likely standard Auger scattering-- and an extrinsic recombination which is proportional to the density of point defects. This second droop mechanism, which hasn't previously been observed, is likely caused by an impurity-assisted Auger process. Further, it is shown that longer-wavelength emitters suffer from higher point …
We designed and synthesized a new organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emitter, SBABz4, containing spiro-biacridine donor (D) in the core surrounded by two benzonitrile acceptors (A). The dual A-DxD-A structure is shown to provide pure-blue emission in relation to its single A-D counterpart. Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) recorded in the broad dynamic range from solutions and solid films revealed three emission components: prompt fluorescence, phosphorescence, and efficient thermally-activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). The latter is independently proven by temperature-dependent TRPL …
Color centered-based single photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have shown promising photophysical properties as sources for quantum light emission. Despite significant advances towards such a goal, achieving lifetime-limited quantum light emission in h-BN has proven to be challenging, primarily due to various broadening mechanisms including spectral diffusion. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate suppression of spectral diffusion by applying an electrostatic field. We observe both Stark shift tuning of the resonant emission wavelength, and emission linewidth reduction…
