Si-doped ceramic Al4O4C nanowires: full-color emission and optical waveguide behavior

The increasing prosperity of the photonics field has hastened the development of several sub-disciplines, with the aim to create advanced photonic devices, produce photonic circuits and eventually enable all-optical communication. This development has resulted in the demand for micro-nano-sized functional units with specific space dimensions (1D &2D) for subwavelength photon operation purposes. The fundamental task involves a search for available semiconductor materials as micro-nano light sources and optical interconnections; in this regard, finding a white-light source is the most challenging task because typical band-band emission is not possible in the single phase. Using current approaches, which rely on surface-state emission and the integration of various emission components, it is impossible to achieve single-phase, single-unit components with specific space dimensions. Here, we achieved continuous full-color (ultraviolet to red) emission by engineering a single Al4O4C nanowire with Si doping, which created impurity levels in the bandgap and conduction band. High light propagation performance was also observed when blue, green and red lasers were coupled into a single nanowire using a tapered optical fiber. This novel 1D nanostructure is an excellent candidate for use in future photonic circuits as a white-light source or interconnection component.