Modifying Mie Resonances and Carrier Dynamics of Silicon Nanoparticles by Dense Electron-Hole Plasmas

Jin Xiang, Jingdong Chen, Qiaofeng Dai, Shaolong Tie, Sheng Lan, and Andrey E. Miroshnichenko

Phys. Rev. Applied 13, 014003 – Published 3 January 2020

Abstract

The strongly localized electric field achieved at the Mie resonances of a silicon nanoparticle enables the generation of a large carrier density, which offers us the opportunity to manipulate the linear and nonlinear optical properties of silicon nanoparticles by optically injecting a dense electron-hole plasma. Here, we show that the dense electron-hole plasma created in a silicon nanoparticle significantly modifies the complex dielectric constant of silicon, which in turn leads to wavelength shift and amplitude change in the magnetic dipole resonance. We demonstrate that the maximum wavelength shift of the magnetic dipole resonance can be revealed by exploiting the hot-electron luminescence emitted by the silicon nanoparticle, which acts as a built-in light source with a broad bandwidth and a short lifetime. We demonstrate that the quantum efficiency of the hot-electron luminescence of silicon nanoparticles can be enhanced a factor of more than 5 through the injection of a dense electron-hole plasma. More interestingly, an acceleration of the radiative recombination process is found at high carrier densities. Our findings are helpful for understanding the modification of Mie resonances in silicon nanoparticles induced by the dense electron-hole plasmas and useful for designing silicon-based photonic devices.

Received 19 September 2018
Revised 4 November 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.13.014003

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Metamaterials Mie scattering Nanophotonics Second order nonlinear optical processes

Elemental semiconductors Nanoparticles

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Jin Xiang ¹, Jingdong Chen², Qiaofeng Dai¹, Shaolong Tie³, Sheng Lan^1,*, and Andrey E. Miroshnichenko^4,†

¹Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanophotonic Functional Materials and Devices, School of Information and Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China
²College of Physics and Information Engineering, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou 363000, China
³School of Chemistry and Environment, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China
⁴School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

^*slan@scnu.edu.cn
^†andrey.miroshnichenko@unsw.edu.au

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Vol. 13, Iss. 1 — January 2020

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Images

Figure 1
Virtualizing MD resonance shift by using hot-electron luminescence. (a) A schematic showing the principle of using the broadband hot-electron luminescence emitted by a $Si$ nanoparticle to virtualize the MD-resonance shift of the $Si$ nanoparticle induced by dense electron-hole plasmas. (b) The evolution of the scattering spectrum of a $Si$ nanosphere with d $\sim$ 200 nm with increasing density of the electron-hole plasma. (c) The evolution of the electrical energy $[\int {| E (λ) |}^{2} d V] / V$ spectrum calculated for the $Si$ nanosphere with increasing density of the electron-hole plasma. The electric field distributions calculated at the MD, ED, MQ, and ED resonances are shown as insets.
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Figure 2
The MD resonance shift revealed in the excitation spectrum of hot-electron luminescence. (a) Luminescence spectra measured for a $Si$ nanosphere with d $\sim 200$ nm at different excitation wavelengths with two excitation intensities of 0.65 and 1.05 ${mJ / cm}^{2}$ . (b) Excitation spectra measured at two excitation intensities of 0.65 and 1.05 ${mJ / cm}^{2}$ . The scattering and hot-electron luminescence spectra for the $Si$ nanosphere are also provided for reference. The scanning-electron-microscope image of the $Si$ nanosphere and the image of the hot-electron luminescence recorded using a charge-coupled device are shown in the insets.
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Figure 3
The MD resonance shift revealed in the MD-enhanced hot luminescence. (a) Hot-electron luminescence spectra measured for a $Si$ nanosphere excited at different wavelengths of 540, 570, and 600 nm. The scattering spectrum measured for the $Si$ nanosphere is also provided for reference. (b) The dependence of the PL intensity and MD resonance on the excitation wavelength.
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Figure 4
The enhanced quantum efficiency observed at high carrier densities. (a) Hot-electron luminescence spectra measured for a $Si$ nanosphere, which is excited at 530 nm, at different excitation intensities. The evolution of the luminescence spectrum with increasing carrier density simulated for the $Si$ nanosphere is shown in the inset. (b) The dependence of the band-gap energy and the refractive-index change of $Si$ on the temperature. The dependence of the temperature on the number of irradiated pulses calculated for a $Si$ nanosphere with $d \sim 200$ nm is shown in the inset. (c) The wavelength dependence of the enhancement factor for the hot-electron luminescence calculated at different excitation intensities. (d) The dependence of the quantum efficiency and carrier density on the excitation intensity extracted for the $Si$ nanosphere.
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