Year: 2014
Type: review
Abstract: Understanding interactions between light and matter is central to many fields, providing invaluable insights into the nature of matter. In its own right, a greater understanding of light-matter coupling has allowed for the creation of tailored applications, resulting in a variety of devices such as lasers, switches, sensors, modulators, and detectors. Reduction of optical mode volume is crucial to enhancing light-matter coupling strength, and among solid-state systems, self-assembled semiconductor and hybrid-plasmonic nanowires are amenable to creation of highly-confined optical modes. Following development of unique spectroscopic techniques designed for the nanowire morphology, carefully engineered semiconductor nanowire cavities have recently been tailored to enhance light-matter coupling strength in a manner previously seen in optical microcavities. Much smaller mode volumes in tailored hybrid-plasmonic nanowires have recently allowed for similar breakthroughs, resulting in sub-picosecond excited-state lifetimes and exceptionally high radiative rate enhancement. Here, we review literature on light-matter interactions in semiconductor and hybrid-plasmonic monolithic nanowire optical cavities to highlight recent progress made in tailoring light-matter coupling strengths. Beginning with a discussion of relevant concepts from optical physics, we will discuss how our knowledge of light-matter coupling has evolved with our ability to produce ever-shrinking optical mode volumes, shifting focus from bulk materials to optical microcavities, before moving on to recent results obtained from semiconducting nanowires.
Source: Reports on Progress in Physics
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, National Research Foundation, National Research Foundation of Korea, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, National Institutes of Health, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Army Research Office
Awards: G1205208594, G2611060490, G4312949789, OPTOELECTRONIC NANOWIRE PROBES FOR INVESTIGATION OF INTRA-CELLULAR PROCESSES, G4729064115, G4857660643, G4921738549, G6671297155, G7228856621, G7452299184, G7513013000, G862988727, CAREER: Semiconductor Nanowire Quantum Heterostructures: Growth, Characterization, and Quantum Confined Properties and Photonics at the Nanoscale
OpenAlex ID: W1978346426