Active liquid crystal tuning of metallic nanoantenna enhanced light emission from colloidal quantum dots.

Abass, Aimi; Rodriguez, Said Rahimzadeh-Kalaleh; Ako, Thomas; Aubert, Tangi; Verschuuren, Marc; Van Thourhout, Dries; Beeckman, Jeroen; Hens, Zeger et al. · Nano Lett · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

A system comprising an aluminum nanoantenna array on top of a luminescent colloidal quantum dot waveguide and covered by a thermotropic liquid crystal (LC) is introduced. By heating the LC above its critical temperature, we demonstrate that the concomitant refractive index change modifies the hybrid plasmonic-photonic resonances in the system. This enables active control of the spectrum and directionality of the narrow-band (∼6 nm) enhancement of quantum dot photoluminescence by the metallic nanoantennas.