Open AccessBright upconverted emission from light-induced inelastic tunneling
Author(s) -
Eradzh Rakhmatov,
Amirhossein Alizadehkhaledi,
Ghazal Hajisalem,
Reuven Gordon
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.390130
Subject(s) - femtosecond , quantum tunnelling , optics , ultrashort pulse , light emission , laser , materials science , optoelectronics , photon , electric field , light field , physics , quantum mechanics
Upconverted light from nanostructured metal surfaces can be produced by harmonic generation and multi-photon luminescence; however, these are very weak processes and require extremely high field intensities to produce a measurable signal. Here we report on bright emission, 5 orders of magnitude greater than harmonic generation, that can be seen from metal tunnel junctions that we believe is due to light-induced inelastic tunneling emission. Like inelastic tunneling light emission, which was recently reported to have 2% conversion efficiency per tunneling event, the emission wavelength recorded varies with the local electric field applied; however, here the field is from a 1560 nm femtosecond pulsed laser source. Finite-difference time-domain simulations of the experimental conditions show the local field is sufficient to generate tunneling-based inelastic light emission in the visible regime. This phenomenon is promising for producing ultrafast upconverted light emission with higher efficiency than conventional nonlinear processes.