Quantum emission assisted by energy landscape modification in pentacene-decorated carbon nanotubes

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that decorating carbon nanotubes with pentacene molecules modifies the exciton energy landscape, enabling enhanced quantum emission and single-photon sources at room temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a noncovalent functionalization method with pentacene to control exciton behavior and promote quantum emission in carbon nanotubes.

Findings

Directional exciton diffusion observed towards decorated sites.

Enhanced exciton-exciton annihilation and photon antibunching.

Room-temperature single-photon emission achieved.

Abstract

Photoluminescent carbon nanotubes are expected to become versatile room-temperature single-photon sources that have applications in quantum information processing. Quantum emission from carbon nanotubes is often induced by localization of excitons or exciton-exciton annihilation. Here, we modify the local energy landscape of excitons by decorating nanoscale pentacene particles onto air-suspended single-walled carbon nanotubes. Directional exciton diffusion from the undecorated region to the decorated site is demonstrated, suggesting exciton trapping induced by local dielectric screening from pentacene particles. Photoluminescence and photon correlation measurements on a representative carbon nanotube reveal enhanced exciton-exciton annihilation and single-photon emission at room temperature. Pentacene particles are shown to promote strong photon antibunching at the decorated site, indicating that noncovalent functionalization using molecules can be an effective approach for energy landscape modification and quantum emission in carbon nanotubes.