IBM Develops Electric Control of Light from Carbon Nanotubes


By fabricating an optical cavity around light-emitting nanotube mirrors at the bottom and top, wavelengths were confined to the desired 1.55-micron communications frequency. IBM researchers see a development path to light emitting nanotubes with no waste heat and a way to create a superlattice array of tubes for silicon photonic chips for optical computers.

EETimes reports, electric control of the spectrum, direction and efficiency of light-emitting nanotubes (LENs) has been demonstrated by researchers at IBM Corp.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center They have put a LEN inside an optical waveguide to achieve directional surface emission, wavelength selectivity and the potential for ultrahigh efficiency.

IBM achieved surface emission by combining a single nanotube-based field-effect-transistor with a pair of metallic mirrors, one above and below the nanotube which lies flat on the silicon chip. The bottom mirror was made from silver, with a top half-mirror made from gold. Light was emitted from the nanotube in the cavity, which was filled with transparent dielectric.

The distance between the top and bottom mirrors was calculated to be half of the desired emission wavelength, which was set to be near a communications wavelength of 1.55 microns. Light was reflected upward off the bottom of the cavity, where half was passed as a surface emission from the LEN while the other half was reflected back down to the bottom mirror to reinforce the desired emission wavelength.

“We confined the emission in an optical cavity with two mirrors, so that light forms a standing wave between the mirrors which enhanced the frequencies, whose wavelength were equal to half the size of the cavity,” said Avouris. “We used lithography to form the cavities, which achieved a dramatic enhancement–confining the spectrum to about 10 percent of what it was without the cavity, and giving us an overall enhancement [in the efficiency] of the emission of 400 percent.

IBM claims it is now only a matter of time until virtually all wasted energy that formerly generated heat can be eliminated by changing the electronic structure of a device.

“There are two types of emission from an object, radiative and nonradiative, with the latter being the energies lost by heat,” said Avouris. Radiative emission “was always thought to be a fixed property of the material, but what we realized was that it is not only the material that is quantized–that has discrete states–but the photons also are part of a field that has quantized states.

“Emission comes by coupling these two fields. We now feel that by using an electric field we can change the electronic structure of nanotubes so that heat cannot be generated,” he added.

Besides improving the efficiency of future devices by eliminating heat generation, IBM researchers also plan to experiment with methods of aligning nanotubes to a superlattice. This would allow an array of LENs to be fabricated on future silicon photonic chips.

IBM Develops Electric Control of Light from Carbon Nanotubes


By fabricating an optical cavity around light-emitting nanotube mirrors at the bottom and top, wavelengths were confined to the desired 1.55-micron communications frequency. IBM researchers see a development path to light emitting nanotubes with no waste heat and a way to create a superlattice array of tubes for silicon photonic chips for optical computers.

EETimes reports, electric control of the spectrum, direction and efficiency of light-emitting nanotubes (LENs) has been demonstrated by researchers at IBM Corp.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center They have put a LEN inside an optical waveguide to achieve directional surface emission, wavelength selectivity and the potential for ultrahigh efficiency.

IBM achieved surface emission by combining a single nanotube-based field-effect-transistor with a pair of metallic mirrors, one above and below the nanotube which lies flat on the silicon chip. The bottom mirror was made from silver, with a top half-mirror made from gold. Light was emitted from the nanotube in the cavity, which was filled with transparent dielectric.

The distance between the top and bottom mirrors was calculated to be half of the desired emission wavelength, which was set to be near a communications wavelength of 1.55 microns. Light was reflected upward off the bottom of the cavity, where half was passed as a surface emission from the LEN while the other half was reflected back down to the bottom mirror to reinforce the desired emission wavelength.

“We confined the emission in an optical cavity with two mirrors, so that light forms a standing wave between the mirrors which enhanced the frequencies, whose wavelength were equal to half the size of the cavity,” said Avouris. “We used lithography to form the cavities, which achieved a dramatic enhancement–confining the spectrum to about 10 percent of what it was without the cavity, and giving us an overall enhancement [in the efficiency] of the emission of 400 percent.

IBM claims it is now only a matter of time until virtually all wasted energy that formerly generated heat can be eliminated by changing the electronic structure of a device.

“There are two types of emission from an object, radiative and nonradiative, with the latter being the energies lost by heat,” said Avouris. Radiative emission “was always thought to be a fixed property of the material, but what we realized was that it is not only the material that is quantized–that has discrete states–but the photons also are part of a field that has quantized states.

“Emission comes by coupling these two fields. We now feel that by using an electric field we can change the electronic structure of nanotubes so that heat cannot be generated,” he added.

Besides improving the efficiency of future devices by eliminating heat generation, IBM researchers also plan to experiment with methods of aligning nanotubes to a superlattice. This would allow an array of LENs to be fabricated on future silicon photonic chips.