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Black phosphorus van der Waals heterostructures light emitting diodes for mid-infrared silicon photonics

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on III-V/II-VI materials have delivered a compelling performance in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) region, which enabled wide-ranging applications, including environmental monitoring, defense and medical diagnostics. Continued efforts are underway to realize on-chip sensors via heterogeneous integration of mid-IR emitters on a silicon photonic chip. But the uptake of such approach is limited by the high costs and interfacial strains, associated with the process of heterogeneous integrations. Here, the black phosphorus (BP)-based van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures are exploited as room temperature LEDs. The demonstrated devices can emit linearly polarized light, and their spectra cover the technologically important mid-IR atmospheric window (3-4 um). Additionally, the BP LEDs exhibit fast modulation speed as well as exceptional stability, and its peak extrinsic quantum efficiency (QE~0.9%) is comparable to the III-V/II-VI mid-IR LEDs. By leveraging the integrability of vdW heterostructures, we further demonstrate a silicon photonic waveguide-integrated BP LED. The reported hybrid platform holds great promise for mid-IR silicon photonics.