CAREER: Designer Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals with Controlled Light-Matter Interactions for On-Demand Quantum Light Sources

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Non-technical descriptionQuantum principles offer new paradigms of computing, communication and sensing that outperform the current technologies. Central to developing many of these next-generation platforms are light sources that can uniquely generate identical single particles of light (photons) on-demand. Achieving such sources with optimal performance and easily integrable design has been a long-standing challenge. This research focuses on developing and studying such an optimal platform using emerging classes of materials, in the form of nanoscale particles in solution. This research will be closely integrated with education and outreach activities. The objective is to make nano and quantum science education more effective, inclusive and accessible, and in line with the growing cross-disciplinary framework of the emerging applications. This will be achieved by developing new interactive course materials, educational activities through virtual reality, and outreach videos for high school students.Technical descriptionThis project combines deterministic control of individual halide perovskite quantum dots with engineering of their local electromagnetic environment and lattice structure to design, study and enhance the photophysical properties of the emitters with controlled light-matter interactions for stable, deterministic and indistinguishable single photon generation. The research will be driven by four main objectives: 1) Develop designer perovskite quantum dots with control at an individual emitter level. 2) Investigate and identify the structure-composition-property relationships underlying a stable, high purity and coherent single photon generation. 3) Tailor the photophysical properties using an emitter-nanocavity coupled system for indistinguishable photon emission. 4) Investigate the effects of controlled lattice strain on the emission characteristics. Collectively, this research will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the prospects of halide perovskite nanocrystals as on-demand sources of quantum light. By enabling a colloidal emitter platform with deterministic single photon emission, and controlled yet scalable processibility, the results help address the much-needed technology gap of easily integrable on-demand single photon sources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.