Single Photon Emission from a Plasmonic Light Source Driven by a Local Field-Induced Coulomb Blockade

Abstract

A hallmark of quantum control is the ability to manipulate quantum emission at the nanoscale. Through scanning tunneling microscopy induced luminescence (STML) we are able to generate plasmonic light originating from inelastic tunneling processes that occur in a few-nanometer thick molecular film of C${}_{60}$ deposited on Ag(111). Single photon emission, not of excitonic origin, occurs with a 1/$e$ lifetime of a tenth of a nanosecond or less, as shown through Hanbury Brown and Twiss photon intensity interferometry. We have performed tight-binding calculations of the electronic structure for the combined Ag-C${}_{60}$-tip system and obtained good agreement with experiment. The tunneling happens through electric field induced split-off states below the C${}_{60}$ LUMO band, which leads to a Coulomb blockade effect and single photon emission. The use of split-off states is shown to be a general technique that has special relevance for narrowband materials with a large bandgap.

References in corpus (5)

• Scanning Quantum Dot Microscopy
• Photon super-bunching from a generic tunnel junction
• Single charge and exciton dynamics probed by molecular-scale-induced electroluminescence
• Important role of alkali atoms in A4C60
• Structure of the Harmonic Oscillator in the space of $n$-particle Glauber correlators

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Optical Excitations with Electron Beams: Challenges and Opportunities
• Electrically driven photon emission from individual atomic defects in monolayer WS2
• Exciton-trion dynamics of a single molecule in a radio-frequency cavity
• Creation and Microscopic Origins of Single-Photon Emitters in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Hexagonal Boron Nitride
• Photon-Emission Statistics induced by Electron Tunnelling in Plasmonic Nanojunctions
• Gigahertz frame rate imaging of charge-injection dynamics in a molecular light source