On-chip optical interconnects promise to drastically reduce energy consumption compared to electrical interconnects, which dominate power dissipation in modern integrated circuits (ICs). One key requirement is a low-power, high-efficiency, and high-speed nanoscale light source. However, existing III-V semiconductor light sources face a high surface recombination velocity (SRV ~ 104 – 106 cm/s) that greatly reduces efficiency at nanoscale sizes. An alternative material system is the monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), single-molecule-thick direct-bandgap semiconductors...
