0000000000796147
AUTHOR
Igor V. Smetanin
Effect of quantized conductivity on the anomalous photon emission radiated from atomic-size point contacts
We observe anomalous visible to near-infrared electromagnetic radiation emitted from electrically driven atomic-size point contacts. We show that the number of photons released strongly depends on the quantized conductance steps of the contact. Counter-intuitively, the light intensity features an exponential decay dependence with the injected electrical power. We propose an analytical model for the light emission considering an out-of-equilibrium electron distribution. We treat photon emission as bremsstrahlung process resulting from hot electrons colliding with the metal boundary and a find qualitative accord with the experimental data.
Electrostatic Control over Optically Pumped Hot Electrons in Optical Gap Antennas
International audience; We investigate the influence of a static electric field on the incoherent nonlinear response of an unloaded electrically contacted nanoscale optical gap antenna. Upon excitation by a tightly focused near-infrared femtosecond laser beam, a transient elevated temperature of the electronic distribution results in a broadband emission of nonlinear photoluminescence (N-PL). We demonstrate a modulation of the yield at which driving photons are frequency up-converted by means of an external control of the electronic surface charge density. We show that the electron temperature and consequently the N-PL intensity can be enhanced or reduced depending on the command polarity a…
Spontaneous hot-electron light emission from electron-fed optical antennas
Nanoscale electronics and photonics are among the most promising research areas providing functional nano-components for data transfer and signal processing. By adopting metal-based optical antennas as a disruptive technological vehicle, we demonstrate that these two device-generating technologies can be interfaced to create an electronically-driven self-emitting unit. This nanoscale plasmonic transmitter operates by injecting electrons in a contacted tunneling antenna feedgap. Under certain operating conditions, we show that the antenna enters a highly nonlinear regime in which the energy of the emitted photons exceeds the quantum limit imposed by the applied bias. We propose a model based…