Directed light emission from monolayers on 2D materials via optical interferences

Two-dimensional materials provide a rich platform to explore phenomena such as emerging electronic and excitonic states, strong light–matter coupling, and new optoelectronic device concepts. The optical response of monolayers is entangled with the substrate on which they are grown or deposited on, often a two-dimensional material itself. Understanding how the properties of the two-dimensional monolayers can be tuned via the substrate is therefore essential. Here we employ angle-resolved reflectivity and photoluminescence spectroscopy on highly ordered molecular monolayers on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) to systematically investigate the angle-dependent optical response as a function of the thickness of the hBN flake. We observe that light reflection and emission occur in a strongly directed fashion and that the direction of light reflection and emission is dictated by the hBN flake thickness. Transfer matrix simulations reproduce the experimental data and show that optical interference effects in hBN are at the origin of the angle-dependent optical properties. While our study focuses on molecular monolayers on hBN, our findings are expected to be general and relevant for any 2D material placed on top of a substrate given the ubiquitous presence of optical interferences. Our findings demonstrate the need to carefully choose substrate parameters for a given experimental geometry but also highlight opportunities in applications such as lighting technology, where the direction of light emission can be controlled via substrate thickness.