(Invited) Chiral Metamaterials for Polarized Photoluminescence

Abstract

Metasurfaces offer compact routes to spatial and polarization control of luminescence from nearby emitters, enabling applications ranging from document security to stereoscopic displays to sensing.Most of the time, light-emitters are distributed evenly across the surface. This talk will discuss an alternate approach, where we use direct-write electron beam lithography to pattern semiconductor nanocrystals into targeted shapes and locations, creating a highly tailored metasurface. We use a combination of nanoscale fabrication, Fourier-space photoluminescence measurements, and computational methods to study the circularly polarized photoluminescence from these designer structures.We will discuss the influence of patterning on the resulting optical properties, including the effects of spatial averaging and dipole orientation. We will then show an optimization strategy to produce highly polarized light at chosen angles of outcoupling. The final part of the talk will discuss adding layers of complexity, including the chirality of the underlying pattern, and creating light-emitting solids from intrinsically chiral semiconductor nanocrystals.