Applied Nanophotonics with Two-Dimensional Materials
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2020
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Silicon semiconductor technology has revolutionized electronics beyond the imagination of pioneering scientists. This technology's rate of progress since 1947 has been enormous, with the number of transistors on a single chip growing from a few thousand in the earliest transistors to more than two billion today. However, there seems to be a limit to the miniaturization of electronics chips, when the size of individual transistors can no longer be reduced, or they become unstable when quantum tunneling starts to kick in at a few atoms limit. Therefore, there is an urgent need to complement Si CMOS technology and to fulfil future computing requirements as well as the need for diversification of applications with new materials. In that context, two-dimensional (2D) materials emerge as a promising alternative. They demonstrate a range of superior optical and electronic properties, which are essential for future optoelectronic applications. In the crystal form, thin layers of these materials are stacked and held together by relatively weak van der Waals forces. Consequently, it is easier to exfoliate and transfer them to a target substrate by a simple tape exfoliation and stamping method. This is a substantial advantage of 2D materials over their three-dimensional (3D) counterparts for incorporation in devices.
2D materials promise a heterogeneous platform that is particularly appealing for on-chip integration, owing to their small footprints and compatibility with semiconductor technology. In this thesis, we investigate the engineering of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) at the nanoscale to generate single photon emitters in hBN flakes and nanoparticles. Next, we discuss the effort to develop novel nanophotonic platforms by integrating hBN quantum emitters in dielectric waveguides; we successfully coupled and propagated quantum light in hBN through the waveguides. Finally, we present the work on the incorporation of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) material in a circular Bragg's grating structure to improve the directionality of the emitted photon stream and light extraction efficiency.
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