Lasing and Searching for Optical Gain in 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (Cun-Zheng Ning, Tsinghua University)

Lasing and Searching for Optical Gain in 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Cun-Zheng Ning
Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and
School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Reducing the size and energy consumption of semiconductor lasers has been a continuing goal for semiconductor laser community for decades. The emergence of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC)s provides a unique opportunity for exploring the limits of size and efficiency of nanolasers with possibly thinnest and most efficient gain media. 

This talk will focus on recent efforts in demonstrating lasing operation using 2D TMDCs, after a brief review of semiconductor nanolasers.  More specifically, we will discuss our recent results in demonstrating the room temperature lasing operation using a monolayer of molybdenum ditelluride integrated with a 1D silicon photonic crystal nanobeam cavity. One of the unresolved issues of optical study of 2D TMDCs is the origin of optical gain in low density regime. We will present some of our preliminary results on possible origin of optical gain in such 2D materials. 

About the Speaker:

Cun-Zheng Ning received his PhD in physics from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His research interest has included laser physics, semiconductor physics, nanophotonics andnanolasers. He was a senior scientist, nanophotonics group leader, and nanotechnology task manager at NASA Ames Research Centre (1997-2007) at Moffett Field, CA, ISSP Visiting Professor at University of Tokyo in 2006, Visiting Professor at Technical University of Berlin and Tsinghua University in 2013. Since 2006, he has been professor of electrical engineering and affiliate professor in physics and materials science andengineering at Arizona State University. He is also affiliated with Tsinghua University in China. He was a winner of several awards including NASA and NASA Contractor Awards, NASA Space Act Patent Awards, CSC Technical Excellence Award, and IEEE/Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer Award (2007-2009). Dr. Ning is a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA), IEEE, and the Electromagnetic Academy. Research results of his group have been widely reported in new media and tech magazines such as Science, MIT Technology Review, Der Spiegel, Photonics Spectra, Nature Photonics. The first white laser demonstration by his group has won “The Best of Tech” in 2015 as the “Top 10 Engineering Inventions of the Year” by Popular Science magazine.