Enhancement of Infrared-Emitting Quantum Dots Photoluminescence Via Plasmonic Nanoarrays

Abstract: Control over the radiative and non-radiative channels of the IR-emitting quantum dots (QDs) is crucially important to improve performance of related devices. Here, we study spontaneous photoluminescence (PL) enhancement of mercury telluride QDs coupled to plasmonic nanoantenna arrays supporting collective plasmon mode spectrally matching QD’s PL spectrum. Our systematic studies revealed how PL enhancement varies with QDs layer thicknesses as well as laser excitation and emission collection conditions, providing deeper insight into the QD/plasmonic arrays interaction. We demonstrated that careful adjustment of excitation and emission collection parameters leads to more than an order of magnitude enhancement of spontaneous emission of HgTe QDs coupled with periodical plasmonic arrays with resonances spectrally matched to QDs absorption and emission bands. The region of QDs layer thickness, wherein plasmon-related quenching and dot-to-dot resonance energy transfer have the minimal impact and, hence the PL enhancement has the maximal factor, had been determined. © 2022, Allerton Press, Inc.