Alignment of Rod-Shaped Single-Photon Emitters Driven by Line Defects in Liquid Crystals

作者：Pelliser Laurent^*; Manceau Mathieu; Lethiec Clotilde; Coursault Delphine; Vezzoli Stefano; Lemenager Godefroy; Coolen Laurent; DeVittorio Massimo; Pisanello Ferruccio; Carbone Luigi; Maitre Agnes; Bramati Alberto; Lacaze Emmanuelle

来源：Advanced Functional Materials, 2015, 25(11): 1719-1726.

DOI：10.1002/adfm.201403331

Arrays of liquid crystal defects-linear smectic dislocations-are used to trap semiconductor CdSe/CdS dot-in-rods which behave as single-photon emitters. Measurements of the emission diagram are combined together with measurements of the emitted polarization of the single emitters. It is shown that the dot-in-rods are confined parallel to the linear defects to allow for a minimization of the disorder energy associated with the dislocation cores. It is demonstrated that the electric dipoles associated with the dot-in-rods, tilted with respect to the rods, remain oriented in the plane including the smectic linear defects and perpendicular to the substrate, most likely due to dipole/dipole interactions between the dipoles of the liquid crystal molecules and those of the dot-in-rods. Using smectic dislocations, nanorods can consequently be oriented along a unique direction for a given substrate, independently of the ligands' nature, without any induced aggregation, leading as well to a fixed azimuthal orientation for the dot-in-rods' dipoles. These results open the way for the fine control of nanoparticle anisotropic optical properties, in particular, fine control of single-photon emission polarization.

• 出版日期2015-3-18