E2CDA: Type I: Excitonic Devices

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a project directed towards the development of an advanced alternative to electronic devices. A special design of the structures on a length scale of a billionth part of a meter allows the creation of new quasi-particles called indirect excitons. The indirect excitons are unique because they can be electronically controlled like electrons in electronic devices and can shine light that electrons cannot do by themselves. The project is directed towards exploring the fundamental limits of excitonic devices and development of excitonic devices that can extend the limits of energy-efficient computation. The students involved with this project have the opportunity to perform exploratory research on the cutting edge of physics, material science, and engineering. This award supports a project directed towards development of excitonic devices. Excitonic devices are based on computational state variables beyond magnetism and charge, namely on excitons. Excitonic devices are particularly well suited to the development of an advanced alternative to electronics due to the properties of excitons: Excitons are bosons that allows creating energy-efficient computation, excitonic signal processing can be directly coupled to optical communication, and excitonic circuits can be realized at deeply subwavelength scales smaller than for photonic devices. The advantages of excitonic devices require specially designed excitons. A breakthrough was achieved by using indirect excitons, IXs. An IX is a bound pair of an electron and a hole in separated layers. Unique properties of IXs make them different from conventional excitons and suitable for the development of energy-efficient computing: the IX energy, fluxes, and emission rate can be controlled by voltage. Objectives of this project include exploring the fundamental limits of excitonic devices for energy-efficient computing and exploring excitonic devices in III-V structures and in new artificial materials based on 2-D single-atomic-layers of transition-metal dichalcogenide.