Colloidal Metal Chalcogenide Quantum Wells for Laser Applications
Junhong Yu, Cuong Dang
Abstract
Since the successful synthesis of two-dimensional colloidal systems in 2011, colloidal metal chalcogenide quantum wells (CQWs) have been a notable addition to the colloidal nanomaterial family. Besides inheriting advantages of colloidal nanocrystals, such as wide-band tunable emissions with high quantum yield and substrate-agnostic deposition, CQWs have exhibited unique characteristics of high-performance optical gain media, such as negligible inhomogeneous broadening in emission spectrum, a giant optical gain coefficient, no phonon bottleneck, and slow Auger recombination. Consequently, the demonstration of CQW-based laser applications has attracted scientific attention and research effort worldwide in recent years. In this review, we cover the recent advances of CQW-based lasers and categorize the progress according to the photon confinement and lasing mechanism: (1) amplified spontaneous emission in pristine CQWs, (2) CQW lasers with a cavity, and (3) multiphoton-pumped CQW lasers. Finally, the future of CQW-based lasers is discussed.