Waveguide-coupled light emitting devices made of 2D materials

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates waveguide-coupled, electrically driven light emitters using 2D materials integrated into a van der Waals heterostructure, advancing on-chip photonic light sources for nanophotonics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integration of 2D material LEDs with photonic waveguides within a vdW heterostructure, enabling on-chip light emission and waveguiding.

Findings

Successful fabrication of waveguide-coupled LEDs with 2D materials.

On-chip light generation and waveguiding demonstrated.

Potential for integrated vdW optoelectronic devices.

Abstract

Optical information processing using photonic integrated circuits is a key goal in the field of nanophotonics. Extensive research efforts have led to remarkable progress in integrating active and passive device functionalities within one single photonic circuit. Still, to date, one of the central components - i.e. light sources - remain a challenge to be integrated. Here, we demonstrate waveguide-coupled electrically driven light emitters in an on-chip photonics platform based on 2D materials. We combine light-emitting devices (LEDs), based on exciton recombination in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), with hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) photonic waveguides in a single van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure. Waveguide-coupled light emission is achieved by sandwiching the LED between two h-BN slabs and patterning the complete vdW stack into a photonic structure. Our demonstration of on-chip light generation and waveguiding is a key component for future integrated vdW optoelectronics.