Emerging fields of colloidal nanophotonics for quality lighting to versatile lasing

Abstract

Solution-processed semiconductor nanocrystals have attracted increasingly greater interest in optoelectronics including color conversion and enrichment in quality lighting and display backlighting. Optical properties of these colloidal nanocrystals can be conveniently controlled by tailoring their shape, composition, and size in an effort to realize high-performance light generation and lasing. We now witness the expanding deployment of semiconductor nanocrystals in consumer products being adapted by giant electronics companies. Based on the rational design and control of excitonic processes in these nanocrystals, it is possible to achieve highly efficient light-emitting diodes and optically pumped lasers. In this chapter, we introduce an emerging field of nanocrystal optoelectronics with applications from quality lighting to versatile lasing. We look into the performance limits of color conversion using colloidal nanocrystals. Here we introduce a new concept of all-colloidal lasers developed by incorporating nanocrystal emitters as the optical gain media intimately into fully colloidal cavities. As an extreme case of solution-processed tightly-confined quasi-2D colloids, we also show that the atomically flat nanoplatelets uniquely offer record high optical gain coefficients and ultralow threshold stimulated emission. Given the recent accelerating progress in colloidal nanophotonics, solution-processed quantum materials now hold great promise to challenge their conventional epitaxial counterparts in the near future.