Polarization-sensitive photoluminescence from aligned carbon chains terminated by gold clusters

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that gold-terminated carbyne chains exhibit polarization-sensitive photoluminescence, with gold clusters stabilizing and aligning the chains, enabling potential applications in integrated quantum photonics.

Contribution

We synthesized aligned gold-terminated carbyne chains and characterized their polarization-sensitive optical properties, revealing new insights into their photoluminescence behavior and potential device applications.

Findings

Gold clusters stabilize longer chains and induce alignment.

Photoluminescence intensity shifts from quadratic to linear with gold.

Excitation at plasmon frequency causes a blue shift in emission.

Abstract

We synthesize a thin film composed of long carbyne chains terminated by gold clusters and study its optical properties. The presence of gold particles stabilizes longer chains and leads to their alignment. We show that the gold clusters also act as a source of electron doping thus changing the intensity of photoluminescence from quadratic dependence on the pumping intensity without gold to linear with gold. We also observe that the excitation of the film at the gold plasmon frequency causes the blue shift of photoluminescence and estimate on the basis of this effect the minimum length of the carbyne chains. The high degree of alignment of the gold-terminated carbyne chains results in strongly anisotropic light absorption characterized by a distinctive cosine dependence on the angle between the carbyne molecule and polarization plane of the excitation. This paves the way for a new class of ultimately-thin polarization sensitive emitters to be used in future integrated quantum photonics devices.