Excitation of Surface Plasmons by Inelastic Electron Tunneling

Liu, Lufang; Xu, Yue; Zhu, Jiajie; Wang, Pan; Tong, Limin; Krasavin, Alexey V.

doi:10.3389/fphy.2020.00251

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Light emission by inelastic tunneling (LEIT) through a tunnel junction can offer unique opportunities to realize ultrafast electrical-optical-signal transduction, [1,2] which can generate light below the diffraction limit and provide potential applications in nanoscale biosensing, [3,4] optical communication, [5] and integrated photonics circuits. [6] First demonstrated by Lambe and McCarthy in 1976, [7] the tunneling electrons in a planar metal-insulator-metal (MIM) tunnel junction will excite the surface plasmons and may subsequently decay into far-field photons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uniform light emission from electrically driven plasmonic grating using multilayer tunneling barriers

He¹,

Hu²,

Tang³

et al. 2022

Chinese Phys. B

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Light emission by inelastic tunneling (LEIT) from a metal–insulator–metal tunnel junction is an ultrafast emission process. It is a promising platform for ultrafast transduction from electrical signal to optical signal on integrated circuits. However, existing procedures of fabricating LEIT devices usually involve both top-down and bottom-up techniques, which reduces its compatibility with the modern microfabrication streamline and limits its potential applications in industrial scale-up. Here in this work, we lift these restrictions by using a multilayer insulator grown by atomic layer deposition as the tunnel barrier. For the first time, we fabricate an LEIT device fully by microfabrication techniques and show a stable performance under ambient conditions. Uniform electroluminescence is observed over the entire active region, with the emission spectrum shaped by metallic grating plasmons. The introduction of a multilayer insulator into the LEIT can provide an additional degree of freedom for engineering the energy band landscape of the tunnel barrier. The presented scheme of preparing a stable ultrathin tunnel barrier may also find some applications in a wide range of integrated optoelectronic devices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uniform light emission from electrically driven plasmonic grating using multilayer tunneling barriers

He¹,

Hu²,

Tang³

et al. 2022

Chinese Phys. B

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“…To utilize SPPs as information carriers, it is desirable to write and read out plasmonic signals via electrical means. [9,49] In our previous work, we reported electronic-plasmonic transducers based on two Al-AlO X -Au tunnel junctions coupled to Au plas-monic waveguides, enabling on-chip generation, manipulation, and readout of plasmonic signals. [50] However, these electronicplasmonic transducers, along with plasmonic tunnel junctions studied so far, are made of Au or Ag, which are incompatible with CMOS technology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CMOS‐Compatible Electronic–Plasmonic Transducers Based on Plasmonic Tunnel Junctions and Schottky Diodes

Wang

Liu

Hoang

et al. 2021

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plasmonic metals, such as Au and Ag, that are not CMOS compatible. [8] Here, we report an all-electrical, CMOS-compatible electronic-plasmonic transducer based on an Al-AlO X -Cu tunnel junction as the plasmon source, a Si-Cu Schottky diode as the plasmon detector, both connected by a Cu plasmonic strip waveguide. These electronic-plasmonic transducers do not require bulky off-chip components and are useful for future on-chip applications where it is vital to interface plasmonics with microelectronics. [1,9] Often, SPPs are excited by optical means, which requires momentummatching elements such as gratings or prisms. [10] One approach to realize on-chip excitation of SPPs is to miniaturize the light sources where first an electrical signal is converted to photons which then couple to SPPs. [3,11,12] In this context of miniaturization, metalinsulator-metal tunnel junctions (MIM-TJs) are interesting because they can be used as electrically driven plasmon sources where SPPs are directly excited via inelastic tunneling of electrons. [13][14][15] The potential of such plasmonic tunnel junctions has been explored in terms of two-photon emission, [16] above threshold emission (where the emitted photons have higher energy than the applied bias), [17,18] and nonlinear effects [19] have been demonstrated. It is also possible To develop methods to generate, manipulate, and detect plasmonic signals by electrical means with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible materials is essential to realize on-chip electronicplasmonic transduction. Here, electrically driven, CMOS-compatible electronic-plasmonic transducers with Al-AlO X -Cu tunnel junctions as the excitation source of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and Si-Cu Schottky diodes as the detector of SPPs, connected via plasmonic strip waveguides of Cu, are demonstrated. Remarkably, the electronic-plasmonic transducers exhibit overall transduction efficiency of 1.85 ± 0.03%, five times higher than previously reported transducers with two tunnel junctions (metal-insulatormetal (MIM)-MIM transducers) where SPPs are detected based on optical rectification. The result establishes a new platform to convert electronic signals to plasmonic signals via electrical means, paving the way toward CMOS-compatible plasmonic components.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202105684.

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“…Quantum-mechanical tunneling enables the transport of electrons across a nanoscale gap between two conducting electrodes, via either elastic or inelastic mechanisms and at a time scale of few femtoseconds. , For the elastic electron tunneling process, electrons tunnel across the barrier layer without energy loss, emerging as hot electrons in the receiving electrode, while for the inelastic electron tunneling (IET) process, electrons lose part of their energy by exciting electromagnetic modes of the tunnel junction − or generating excited electronic and vibrational states of molecules/atoms in the gap. − Since the first discovery in a planar metal–insulator–metal tunnel junction (MIM-TJ), direct electrical excitation of optical modes by IET has attracted extensive research interest − due to its potential to create electrically driven optical sources with an ultrahigh modulation bandwidth (THz level), an ultrasmall footprint (nanometer scale), and a low operation voltage (several volts), which are highly required for high-speed integrated optoelectronic circuits.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Waveguide-Integrated Light-Emitting Metal–Insulator–Graphene Tunnel Junctions

Liu

Krasavin

et al. 2023

Nano Lett.

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Ultrafast interfacing of electrical and optical signals at the nanoscale is highly desired for on-chip applications including optical interconnects and data processing devices. Here, we report electrically driven nanoscale optical sources based on metal− insulator−graphene tunnel junctions (MIG-TJs), featuring waveguided output with broadband spectral characteristics. Electrically driven inelastic tunneling in a MIG-TJ, realized by integrating a silver nanowire with graphene, provides broadband excitation of plasmonic modes in the junction with propagation lengths of several micrometers (∼10 times larger than that for metal− insulator−metal junctions), which therefore propagate toward the junction edge with low loss and couple to the nanowire waveguide with an efficiency of ∼70% (∼1000 times higher than that for metal−insulator−metal junctions). Alternatively, lateral coupling of the MIG-TJ to a semiconductor nanowire provides a platform for efficient outcoupling of electrically driven plasmonic signals to low-loss photonic waveguides, showing potential for applications at various integration levels.

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Excitation of Surface Plasmons by Inelastic Electron Tunneling

Cited by 5 publications

References 66 publications

Uniform light emission from electrically driven plasmonic grating using multilayer tunneling barriers

Uniform light emission from electrically driven plasmonic grating using multilayer tunneling barriers

CMOS‐Compatible Electronic–Plasmonic Transducers Based on Plasmonic Tunnel Junctions and Schottky Diodes

Waveguide-Integrated Light-Emitting Metal–Insulator–Graphene Tunnel Junctions

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