Electroluminescence from 4-nitroaryl organic color centers in semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Organic color-centers (OCCs) on single-wall carbon nanotubes are quantum defects that demonstrate intriguing near-infrared emission properties with potential for bioimaging, chemical sensing, and quantum communication. Many of these applications will require electrical pumping rather than optical excitation to deterministically access the near-infrared emission properties of OCCs, though this has yet to be achieved. In this work, we report experimental observation of near-infrared electroluminescence from 4-nitroaryl OCCs intentionally introduced on (6,5)-single-wall carbon nanotubes that are aligned across a pair of gold electrodes. Spatially correlated photoluminescence and electroluminescence spectroscopy reveal direct evidence of the localized electroluminescence from the OCCs on the semiconducting nanotube hosts. The electroluminescence intensity displays an exponential dependence on the source–drain current, suggesting that impact excitation by unipolar carriers at the quantum defects is the origin of the observed emission. These electroluminescent quantum defects may pave the way to enable on-chip integration for potential applications of OCCs in display, sensor, and spin-based devices, as well as other quantum technologies.