Acoustically driven photon antibunching in nanowires.

Authors :: Hernández-Mínguez A
Möller M
Breuer S
Pfüller C
Somaschini C
Lazić S
Brandt O
García-Cristóbal A
de Lima MM Jr
Cantarero A
Geelhaar L
Riechert H
Santos PV
Source :: Nano letters [Nano Lett] 2012 Jan 11; Vol. 12 (1), pp. 252-8. Date of Electronic Publication: 2011 Dec 13.
Publication Year :: 2012
Abstract: The oscillating piezoelectric field of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is employed to transport photoexcited carriers, as well as to spatially control exciton recombination in GaAs-based nanowires (NWs) on a subns time scale. The experiments are carried out in core-shell NWs transferred to a SAW delay line on a LiNbO(3) crystal. Carriers generated in the NW by a focused laser spot are acoustically transferred to a second location, leading to the remote emission of subns light pulses synchronized with the SAW phase. The dynamics of the carrier transport, investigated using spatially and time-resolved photoluminescence, is well-reproduced by computer simulations. The high-frequency contactless manipulation of carriers by SAWs opens new perspectives for applications of NWs in opto-electronic devices operating at gigahertz frequencies. The potential of this approach is demonstrated by the realization of a high-frequency source of antibunched photons based on the acoustic transport of electrons and holes in (In,Ga)As NWs.<br /> (© 2011 American Chemical Society)