Temperature-dependent resonance energy transfer from semiconductor quantum wells to graphene

Resonance energy transfer (RET) has been employed for interpreting the energy interaction of graphene combined with semiconductor materials such as nanoparticles and quantum-well (QW) heterostructures. Especially, for the application of graphene as a transparent electrode for semiconductor light emitting diodes, the mechanism of exciton recombination processes such as RET in graphene-semiconductor QW heterojunctions should be understood clearly. Here, we characterized the temperature-dependent RET behaviors in graphene/semiconductor QW heterostructures. We then observed the tuning of the RET efficiency from 5% to 30% in graphene/QW heterostructures with 60 nm dipole-dipole coupled distance at temperatures of 300 to 10 K. This survey allows us to identify the roles of localized and free excitons in the RET process from the QWs to graphene as a function of temperature.