Nano-imaging of intersubband transitions in van der Waals quantum wells

Abstract

The science and applications of electronics and optoelectronics have been driven for decades by progress in growth of semiconducting heterostructures. Many applications in the infrared and terahertz frequency range exploit transitions between quantized states in semiconductor quantum wells (intersubband transitions). However, current quantum well devices are limited in functionality and versatility by diffusive interfaces and the requirement of lattice-matched growth conditions. Here, we introduce the concept of intersubband transitions in van der Waals quantum wells and report their first experimental observation. Van der Waals quantum wells are naturally formed by two-dimensional (2D) materials and hold unexplored potential to overcome the aforementioned limitations: They form atomically sharp interfaces and can easily be combined into heterostructures without lattice-matching restrictions. We employ near-field local probing to spectrally resolve and electrostatically control the intersubband absorption with unprecedented nanometer-scale spatial resolution. This work enables exploiting intersubband transitions with unmatched design freedom and individual electronic and optical control suitable for photodetectors, LEDs and lasers.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Light-matter interactions with photonic quasiparticles
• Guide to optical spectroscopy of layered semiconductors
• Ultra-thin van der Waals crystals as semiconductor quantum wells
• The optical properties of few-layer InSe
• Combining density functional theory with macroscopic QED for quantum light-matter interactions in 2D materials
• Cavity engineering of solid-state materials without external driving
• Optical signature of cascade transitions between moiré interlayer excitons
• Single- and narrow-line photoluminescence in a boron nitride-supported MoSe${}_2$/graphene heterostructure