Greffet, Jean-Jacques

Light emission by solids: a unified model

Jean-Jacques Greffet - Université Paris-Saclay, Institut d'Optique, Palaiseau, France

Light emission by electronic excitations of a solid is often described using a list of different microscopic processes such as incandescence, fluorescence, electroluminescence, scintillation, cathodoluminescence, light emission by inelastic tunneling. These processes are associated to electronic transitions but for most of them, no quantitative theories are available. One difficulty is that beyond the microscopic transition responsible for the emission in the bulk, it is necessary to model the extraction of the photon out of the emitter. On the other hand, electrical engineers can compute emission by currents in complex environments such as cavities or antennas which modify drastically the process. We will present in the talk a general framework that reconciles the two points of view and can be used to derive a quantitative model of light emission by solids. Applications to thermal emission and electroluminescence [1], photoluminescence by metals [2] , laser [3] and photon Bose-Einstein condensation [4] will be discussed.

1. Light emission by nonequilibrium bodies: local Kirchhoff law, J.J. Greffet, P. Bouchon, G. Brucoli, F. Marquier, Phys.Rev.X 8, 021008 (2018)
2. Theory of photoluminescence by metallic structures, Aurelian Loirette-Pelous, Jean-Jacques Greffet, ACS Nano 18, 31823 (2024)
3. On the applicability of Kirchhoff's law to the lasing regime, Aurelian Loirette-Pelous, Jean-Jacques Greffet, Optica 11, 1621 (2024)
4. Photon Bose–Einstein Condensation and Lasing in Semiconductor Cavities, A. Loirette-Pelous, J.-J. Greffet, Laser Photonics Rev. 2300366 (2023)