Preferential emission into epsilon-near-zero metamaterial [Invited]

We report the use of epsilon near zero (ENZ) metamaterial to control spontaneous emission from Zinc-Oxide (ZnO) excitons. The ENZ material consists of alternating layers of silver and alumina with subwavelength thicknesses, resulting in an effective medium where one of the components of the dielectr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optical materials express 2015-12, Vol.5 (12), p.2878-2883
Main Authors: Galfsky, Tal, Sun, Zheng, Jacob, Zubin, Menon, Vinod M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
Deposition
Emission
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Excitons
Lasers
Metamaterials
Silver
Spontaneous emission
Zinc oxide
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Summary:We report the use of epsilon near zero (ENZ) metamaterial to control spontaneous emission from Zinc-Oxide (ZnO) excitons. The ENZ material consists of alternating layers of silver and alumina with subwavelength thicknesses, resulting in an effective medium where one of the components of the dielectric constant approach zero between 370nm-440nm wavelength range. Bulk ZnO with photoluminescence maximum in the ENZ regime was deposited via atomic layer deposition to obtain a smooth film with near field coupling to the ENZ metamaterial. Preferential emission from the ZnO layer into the metamaterial with suppression of forward emission by 90% in comparison to ZnO on silicon is observed. We attribute this observation to the presence of dispersionless plasmonic modes in the ENZ regime as shown by the results of theoretical modeling presented here. Integration of ENZ metamaterials with light emitters is an attractive platform for realizing a low threshold subwavelength laser.
ISSN:2159-3930
2159-3930
DOI:10.1364/OME.5.002878