The quantum confinement of Rydberg excitons is an important step towards exploiting their large nonlinearities for quantum applications. We observe Rydberg excitons in natural nanoparticles of Cu2O. We resolve up to the principal quantum number n=12 in a bulk Cu2O crystal and up to n=6 in nanoparticles extracted from the same crystal. The exciton transitions in nanoparticles are broadened and their oscillator strengths decrease as ∝n−4 compared to those in the bulk (decreasing as ∝n−3). We explain our results by including the effect of quantum confinement of exciton states in the nanoparticles. Our results provide an understanding of the physics of Cu2O Rydberg excitons in confined dimensions.
@article{arxiv.2011.12006,
title = {Quantum confined Rydberg excitons in Cu$_2$O nanoparticles},
author = {Konstantinos Orfanakis and Sai Kiran Rajendran and Hamid Ohadi and Sylwia Zielińska-Raczyńska and Gerard Czajkowski and Karol Karpiński and David Ziemkiewicz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.12006},
year = {2021}
}