Terahertz control of photoluminescence emission in few-layer InSe

Venanzi, T.; Selig, M.; Pashkin, A.; Winnerl, S.; Katzer, M.; Arora, H.; Erbe, A.; Patanè, A.; Kudrynskyi, Z. R.; Kovalyuk, Z. D.; Baldassarre, L.; Knorr, A.; Helm, M.; Schneider, H.

Abstract

A promising route for the development of opto-electronic technology is to use terahertz radiation to modulate the optical properties of semiconductors. Here, we demonstrate the dynamical control of photoluminescence (PL) emission in few-layer InSe using picosecond terahertz pulses. We observe a strong PL quenching (up to 50%) after the arrival of the terahertz pulse followed by a reversible recovery of the emission on the timescale of 50 ps at T = 10 K. Microscopic calculations reveal that the origin of the photoluminescence quenching is the terahertz absorption by photo-excited carriers: this leads to a heating of the carriers and a broadening of their distribution, which reduces the probability of bimolecular electron-hole recombination and, therefore, the luminescence. By numerically evaluating the Boltzmann equation, we are able to clarify the individual roles of optical and acoustic phonons in the subsequent cooling process. The same PL quenching mechanism is expected in other van der Waals semiconductors, and the effect will be particularly strong for materials with low carrier masses and long carrier relaxation time, which is the case for InSe. This work gives a solid background for the development of opto-electronic applications based on InSe, such as THz detectors and optical modulators.

Citation

Venanzi, T., Selig, M., Pashkin, A., Winnerl, S., Katzer, M., Arora, H., Erbe, A., Patanè, A., Kudrynskyi, Z. R., Kovalyuk, Z. D., Baldassarre, L., Knorr, A., Helm, M., & Schneider, H. (2022). Terahertz control of photoluminescence emission in few-layer InSe. Applied Physics Letters, 120(9), Article 092104. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0080784

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 17, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 2, 2022
• Publication Date: Feb 28, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 18, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2022
• Journal: Applied Physics Letters
• Print ISSN: 0003-6951
• Electronic ISSN: 1077-3118
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 120
• Issue: 9
• Article Number: 092104
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0080784
• Keywords: Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7474046
• Publisher URL: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0080784
• Additional Information: This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 092104 (2022) and may be found at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0080784