Optical antennas driven by quantum tunneling: a key issues review

TL;DR

This review explores how quantum tunneling, especially inelastic electron tunneling, enables electrically driven optical nanoantennas, highlighting recent advances and future prospects in nanophotonics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of recent developments in using quantum tunneling for electrically driven optical antennas, a key challenge in nanophotonics.

Findings

Quantum tunneling enables electrical-to-optical energy conversion.

Recent progress demonstrates practical optical antenna implementations.

Future directions include optimizing tunneling mechanisms for better performance.

Abstract

Analogous to radio- and microwave antennas, optical nanoantennas are devices that receive and emit radiation at optical frequencies. Until recently, the realization of electrically driven optical antennas was an outstanding challenge in nanophotonics. In this review we discuss and analyze recent reports in which quantum tunneling-specifically inelastic electron tunneling-is harnessed as a means to convert electrical energy into photons, mediated by optical antennas. To aid this analysis we introduce the fundamentals of optical antennas and inelastic electron tunneling. Our discussion is focused on recent progress in the field and on future directions and opportunities.