Tunable and enhanced light emission in hybrid WS₂-optical-fiber-nanowire structures

In recent years, the two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have attracted renewed interest owing to their remarkable physical and chemical properties. Similar to that of graphene, the atomic thickness of TMDCs significantly limits their optoelectronic applications. In this study, we report a hybrid WS₂-optical-fiber-nanowire (WOFN) structure for broadband enhancement of the light-matter interactions, i.e., light absorption, photoluminescence (PL) and second-harmonic generation (SHG), through evanescent field coupling. The interactions between the anisotropic light field of an optical fiber nanowire (OFN) and the anisotropic second-order susceptibility tensor of WS₂ are systematically studied theoretically and experimentally. In particular, an efficient SHG in the WOFN appears to be 20 times larger than that in the same OFN before the WS₂ integration under the same conditions. Moreover, we show that strain can efficiently manipulate the PL and SHG in the WOFN owing to the large configurability of the silica OFN. Our results demonstrate the potential applications of waveguide-coupled TMDCs structures for tunable high-performance photonic devices.