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World’s most efficient nanowire lasers

Date:
June 16, 2016
Source:
Department of Energy, Office of Science
Summary:
Researchers demonstrated that nanowires made from lead halide perovskite are the most efficient nanowire lasers known..
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Known for their low cost, simple processing and high efficiency, perovskites are popular materials in solar panel research. Now, researchers demonstrated that nanowires made from lead halide perovskite are the most efficient nanowire lasers known.

Efficient nanowire lasers could benefit fiber optic communications, pollution characterization, and other applications. The challenge is getting the right material. These ultra-compact wires have a superior ability to emit light, can be tuned to emit different colors, and are relatively easy to synthesize. The development of these perovskite wires parallels the rapid development of the same materials for efficient solar cells.

Semiconductor nanowire lasers, due to their ultra-compact physical sizes, highly localized coherent output, and efficiency, are promising components for use in fully integrated nanoscale photonic and optoelectronic devices. Lasing requires a minimum (threshold) excitation density, below which little light is emitted.

A high "lasing threshold" not only makes critical technical advances difficult, but also imposes fundamental limits on laser performance due to the onset of other losses. In searching for an ideal material for nanowire lasing, researchers at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigated a new class of hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductors, methyl ammonium lead halide perovskites (CH3NH3PbX3), which is emerging as a leading material for high-efficiency photovoltaic solar cells due to low cost, simple processing and high efficiencies.

The exceptional solar cell performance in these materials can be attributed to the long lifetimes of the carriers that move energy through the systems (electrons and holes) and carrier diffusion lengths.

These properties, along with other attributes such as high fluorescence yield and wavelength tunability, also make them ideal for lasing applications. Room temperature lasing in these nanowires was demonstrated with:

  • The lowest lasing thresholds and the highest quality factors reported to date
  • Near 100% quantum yield (ratio of the number of photons emitted to those absorbed)
  • Broad tunability of emissions covering the near infrared to visible wavelength region.

Specifically, the laser emission shifts from near infrared to blue with decreasing atomic number of the halides (X=I, Br, Cl) in the nanowires. These nanowires could advance applications in nanophotonics and optoelectronic devices. In particular, lasers that operate in the near infrared region could benefit fiber optic communications and advance pollution characterization from space.

This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science (Office of Basic Energy Sciences) and the National Science Foundation.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Department of Energy, Office of Science. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Haiming Zhu, Yongping Fu, Fei Meng, Xiaoxi Wu, Zizhou Gong, Qi Ding, Martin V. Gustafsson, M. Tuan Trinh, Song Jin, X-Y. Zhu. Lead halide perovskite nanowire lasers with low lasing thresholds and high quality factors. Nature Materials, 2015; 14 (6): 636 DOI: 10.1038/NMAT4271

Cite This Page:

Department of Energy, Office of Science. "World’s most efficient nanowire lasers." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 June 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616141636.htm>.
Department of Energy, Office of Science. (2016, June 16). World’s most efficient nanowire lasers. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616141636.htm
Department of Energy, Office of Science. "World’s most efficient nanowire lasers." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616141636.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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