Hot electron emission from waveguide integrated lanthanum hexaboride nanoparticles

Abstract

Recently, it has been shown that hot-electron photoemission in waveguide-integrated graphene can occur at peak optical power densities many orders of magnitude lower than multiphoton and strong field emission. In this work, we study how the deposition of low-work function lanthanum hexaboride nanoparticles can alter the behavior of hot-electron emission from graphene and thin gold waveguide-integrated hot electron emitters. This approach is promising, as the graphene enables an electrically conductive platform on which to deposit the nanoparticles, while still enabling interaction between the nanoparticles and incident photons. Despite nonideal coatings of LaB6 nanoparticles on the waveguide integrated graphene and gold, there is a nearly order of magnitude improvement over previous graphene-based hot-electron emitters. This hybrid approach demonstrates how a combination of integrated photonics and low-work function coatings can improve the performance of the emerging class of hot-electron emitters.