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Title: Towards zero-threshold optical gain using charged semiconductor quantum dots

Journal Article · · Nature Nanotechnology
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [3]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian (China)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Colloidal semiconductor quantum dots are attractive materials for the realization of solution-processable lasers. However, their applications as optical-gain media are complicated by a non-unity degeneracy of band-edge states, because of which multiexcitons are required to achieve the lasing regime. This increases the lasing thresholds and leads to very short optical gain lifetimes limited by nonradiative Auger recombination. Here, we show that these problems can be at least partially resolved by employing not neutral but negatively charged quantum dots. By applying photodoping to specially engineered quantum dots with impeded Auger decay, we demonstrate a considerable reduction of the optical gain threshold due to suppression of ground-state absorption by pre-existing carriers. Moreover, by injecting approximately one electron per dot on average, we achieve a more than twofold reduction in the amplified spontaneous emission threshold, bringing it to the sub-single-exciton level. Furthermore, these measurements indicate the feasibility of ‘zero-threshold’ gain achievable by completely blocking the band-edge state with two electrons.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1415416
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-17-26002; TRN: US1800810
Journal Information:
Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 12, Issue 12; ISSN 1748-3387
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 90 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Ultrafast Dynamics of Charge Transfer and Photochemical Reactions in Solar Energy Conversion journal October 2018
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Coherent Spectroscopy of Multiple Excitons in Colloidal Nanocrystal Quantum Dots journal June 2019
Acquisition of Hyperspectral Data with Colloidal Quantum Dots journal October 2019
All-optical control of exciton flow in a colloidal quantum well complex journal February 2020
A bright future for colloidal quantum dot lasers journal August 2019
Dual-band infrared imaging using stacked colloidal quantum dot photodiodes journal February 2019
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Electrically control amplified spontaneous emission in colloidal quantum dots journal October 2019
Sub–single-exciton lasing using charged quantum dots coupled to a distributed feedback cavity journal August 2019
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