Reduced reabsorption and enhanced propagation induced by large Stokes shift in quantum dot-filled optical fiber

Abstract

With tunable emission wavelength, high photoluminescence quantum yield, and broad absorption, colloidal quantum dots are attractive for the application in optical fiber as dopants. However, most of the quantum dots have a large overlap between their absorption and photoluminescence spectra, resulting in reabsorption loss which hinders the realization of long-distance waveguides. Therefore, ZnCuInS/ZnSe/ZnS quantum dots with large Stokes shift were proposed to fabricate a liquid-core optical fiber in this work. In this work, ZnCuInS/ZnSe/ZnS QDs with an average size of 3.3 nm were synthesized and the optical properties of the QD-filled fiber were also investigated as a function of fiber length and doping concentration. Compared to the control sample filled with CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots, the ZnCuInS/ZnSe/ZnS quantum dot-based waveguides showed reduced reabsorption and enhanced signal propagation, which demonstrates great potential of large Stokes-shift quantum dots in optical waveguide devices. A reduced reabsorption and enhanced propagation of ZnCuInS/ZnSe/ZnS QDs-doped liquid-core optical fiber was achieved due to the large Stokes shift.