Uniaxial Strain-Induced Tunable Mid-infrared Light Emission from Thin Film Black Phosphorus

Hao Chen; Xun Ge; Yiming Wang; Qianqian Xu; Zhifeng Li; Xiaohao Zhou; Jiaming Hao; Weida Hu; Shengjuan Li; Xingjun Wang

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00145

Uniaxial Strain-Induced Tunable Mid-infrared Light Emission from Thin Film Black Phosphorus

J Phys Chem Lett. 2023 Mar 2;14(8):2092-2098. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00145. Epub 2023 Feb 17.

Authors

Hao Chen^{1

2}, Xun Ge³, Yiming Wang⁴, Qianqian Xu², Zhifeng Li², Xiaohao Zhou², Jiaming Hao⁵, Weida Hu², Shengjuan Li¹, Xingjun Wang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China.
³ Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
⁴ Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Information Science and Engineering, National Model Microelectronics College, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
⁵ Shanghai Frontiers Science Research Base of Intelligent Optoelectronics and Perception, Institute of Optoelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.

PMID: 36799775
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00145

Abstract

Strain engineering is a powerful tool that can modulate semiconductor device performance. Here, we demonstrate that the bandgap of thin film (∼40 nm) black phosphorus (bP) can be continuously tuned from 2.9 to 3.9 μm by applying an in-plane uniaxial strain, as evidenced by mid-infrared photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The deduced bandgap strain coefficients are ∼103 meV %^-1, which coincide with those obtained in few-layer bP. On the basis of first-principles calculations, the origin of the uniaxial tensile strain-induced PL enhancement is suggested to be due to the increase in both the effective mass ratio (m_e^*/m_h^*) and the bandgap, leading to the increment of the radiative efficiency. Moreover, the mid-infrared PL emission remains perfectly linear-polarized along the armchair direction regardless of tensile or compressive strain. The highly tunable bandgap of bP in the mid-infrared regime opens up opportunities for the realization of mid-infrared light-emitting diodes and lasers using layered materials.