TY - JOUR

T1 - Photon tunneling into a single-mode planar silicon waveguide

AU - Fang, Liping

AU - Kiang, Kian S.

AU - Alderman, Nicholas P.

AU - Danos, Lefteris

AU - Markvart, Tom

N1 - © 2015 Optical Society of America. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modifications of the content of this paper are prohibited.

PY - 2015/11/30

Y1 - 2015/11/30

N2 - We demonstrate the direct excitation of a single TE mode in 25 nm thick planar crystalline silicon waveguide by photon tunneling from a layer of fluorescent dye molecules deposited by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. The observed photon tunneling rate as a function of the dye- silicon separation is well fitted by a theoretical tunneling rate, which is obtained via a novel approach within the framework of quantum mechanics. We suggest that future ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells can be made efficient by simple light trapping structures consisting of molecules on silicon.

AB - We demonstrate the direct excitation of a single TE mode in 25 nm thick planar crystalline silicon waveguide by photon tunneling from a layer of fluorescent dye molecules deposited by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. The observed photon tunneling rate as a function of the dye- silicon separation is well fitted by a theoretical tunneling rate, which is obtained via a novel approach within the framework of quantum mechanics. We suggest that future ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells can be made efficient by simple light trapping structures consisting of molecules on silicon.

U2 - 10.1364/OE.23.0A1528

DO - 10.1364/OE.23.0A1528

M3 - Journal article

VL - 23

SP - A1528-A1532

JO - Optics Express

JF - Optics Express

SN - 1094-4087

IS - 24

ER -