Researchers at the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) have contributed a detailed chapter to a new book on optical techniques for characterizing solid-state materials. The chapter, titled “Micro-optical techniques,” provides graduate-level explanations of how far-field optics can be used to perform optical spectroscopy on materials with micrometer-scale spatial resolution.
The authors describe specific micro-optical techniques, including micro-photoluminescence experiments, which involve optically pumping a material to emit light that is then collected and spectrally resolved. Examples of materials studied using these techniques include nanofabricated photonic crystal lasers and epitaxially grown semiconductor quantum dots. The chapter also explains the incorporation of time-correlated single photon counting techniques and extensions to angle-resolved reflectivity, electroluminescence, and photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy.
By providing clear, detailed explanations of these techniques, the book aims to enable researchers to readily implement them and acquire new insights into the materials they study. The chapter is written by K. Srinivasan, M. T. Rakher, and M. Davanco and appears in “Optical Techniques for Solid-State Materials Characterization” (Taylor and Francis, 2011), page 575-618.
Keywords: photoluminescence, quantum dots, spectroscopy
