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Abstract Colloidal quantum wells, or nanoplatelets, show among the lowest thresholds for amplified spontaneous emission and lasing among solution-cast materials and among the highest modal gains of any known materials. Using solution measurements of colloidal quantum wells, this work shows that under photoexcitation, optical gain increases with pump fluence before rolling off due to broad photoinduced absorption at energies lower than the band gap. Despite the common occurrence of gain induced by an electron–hole plasma found in bulk materials and epitaxial quantum wells, under no measurement conditions was the excitonic absorption of the colloidal quantum wells extinguished and gain arising from a plasma observed. Instead, like gain, excitonic absorption reaches a minimum intensity near a photoinduced carrier sheet density of 2 × 10 13  cm −2 above which the absorption peak begins to recover. To understand the origins of these saturation and reversal effects, measurements were performed with different excitation energies, which deposit differing amounts of excess energy above the band gap. Across many samples, it was consistently observed that less energetic excitation results in stronger excitonic bleaching and gain for a given carrier density. Transient and static optical measurements at elevated temperatures, as well as transient X-ray diffraction of the samples, suggest that the origin of gain saturation and reversal is a heating and disordering of the colloidal quantum wells which produces sub-gap photoinduced absorption. 

Chalcogenides in the perovskite and related crystal structures (“chalcogenide perovskites” for brevity) may be useful for future optoelectronic and energy-conversion technologies inasmuch as they have good excited-state, ambipolar transport properties. In recent years, several studies have suggested that semiconductors in the Ba–Zr–S system have slow non-radiative recombination rates. Here, we present a time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) study of excited-state carrier mobility and recombination rates in the perovskite-structured material BaZrS 3 , and the related Ruddlesden–Popper phase Ba 3 Zr 2 S 7 . We measure state-of-the-art single crystal samples, to identify properties free from the influence of secondary phases and random grain boundaries. We model and fit the data using a semiconductor physics simulation, to enable more direct determination of key material parameters than is possible with empirical data modeling. We find that both materials have Shockley–Read–Hall recombination lifetimes on the order of 50 ns and excited-state diffusion lengths on the order of 5 μm at room temperature, which bodes well for ambipolar device performance in optoelectronic technologies including thin-film solar cells. 

The design/synthesis and characterization of organic donor–acceptor (D–A) dyads can provide precious data allowing to improve the efficiency of classical photo-induced bimolecular interactions/processes. In this report, two novel triplet D–A dyads (4 and 5) were synthesized and fully characterized. While the optical absorption and emission profiles of these new systems exhibit similar spectral structures as that of the triplet donor/sensitizer quinoidal thioamide (QDN), the transient absorption (TA) spectra of these two dyads produced new features that can be associated with triplet transients and charge transfer species. However, the kinetics of the excited-state processes/dynamics is significantly influenced by the geometrical arrangement(s) of donor/acceptor chromophores. Further analysis of the TA data suggests that the dyad with slip-stack geometry (4) is less effective in undergoing both intra- and inter-dyad triplet energy transfer than the dyad with co-facial geometry (5). Subsequently, triplet sensitization of 9,10-diphenylanthracene (DPA) using both dyads led to upconverted photoluminescence via triplet–triplet annihilation of DPA triplet transients. But, it was found that a maximum upconversion quantum yield could be achieved at a low power density using the co-facial type dyad 5. Altogether, these results provide valuable guidance in the design of triplet donor–acceptor dyads, which could be used for light-harvesting/modulation applications. 

The growth in computational ability over the past decades has positively impacted global development, the economy, healthcare, and science. As on-chip components are approaching the atomic scale, alternative paradigms are needed to address the thermal and electronic issues that impose bottlenecks for computing. One approach to address this is with optoelectronics. However, silicon—the backbone of microelectronics—is a poor choice due to its indirect bandgap, while existing optoelectronic materials are incompatible with CMOS infrastructure. Monolayer silicon nanosheets (SiNSs) are an intriguing material that exhibit photoluminescence, and are compositionally-compatible with the CMOS process. Here, we synthesize and characterize monolayer SiNSs, and show spectroscopic evidence that they exhibit a quasi-direct bandgap, which is corroborated by DFT calculations. We probe their thermal stability, demonstrating their structure and photoluminescence are stable beyond the required operating temperatures for computing applications. These optoelectronic properties, CMOS-compatibility, and stability make SiNSs a viable candidate for silicon-based photonics. 

Colloidal copper nanorods (NRs) display transverse and longitudinal localized surface plasmon resonances. The longitudinal localized surface plasmon modes are tunable through the near‐infrared electromagnetic radiation energies with NR aspect ratios. Visible and near‐infrared transient optical response of the copper NRs is investigated under excitation conditions spanning intraband and interband excitation (0.79−3.50 eV). In both the visible and near‐infrared regions, the spectral response of the samples under intraband excitation (<2 eV) differs substantially from their response under interband excitation (>2 eV). However, the timescale of the electron−phonon coupling estimated from pump fluence‐dependent measurements (τ_ep) is less sensitive to excitation conditions than reports for gold.τ_epshortens slightly from ≈616 fs with intraband excitation (at visible probe energies) to ≈565 fs with interband excitation. The observed dynamics correspond to an average sample electron−phonon coupling parameter varying across all conditions from 4.4 × 10¹⁶to 6.4 × 10¹⁶ J m⁻³ K⁻¹, which is similar to bulk copper. Furthermore, coherent acoustic phonons are observed for the longitudinal localized surface plasmon resonance with a range of oscillatory periods reflecting sample size dispersion.