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Letters to Nature
Nature 431, 826-829 (14 October 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature02937; Received 17 June 2004; Accepted 16 August 2004
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Metal–insulator–semiconductor optoelectronic fibres
Mehmet Bayindir1, Fabien Sorin2,3,5, Ayman F. Abouraddy1,5, Jeff Viens1,3, Shandon D. Hart1,3, John D. Joannopoulos1,2,4 & Yoel Fink1,2,3
- Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Center for Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Mehmet Bayindir1Yoel Fink1,2,3 Email: yoel@mit.edu
Email: mehmet@mit.edu
Abstract
The combination of conductors, semiconductors and insulators with well-defined geometries and at prescribed length scales, while forming intimate interfaces, is essential in most functional electronic and optoelectronic devices. These are typically produced using a variety of elaborate wafer-based processes, which allow for small features, but are restricted to planar geometries and limited coverage area1, 2, 3. In contrast, the technique of fibre drawing from a preformed reel or tube is simpler and yields extended lengths of highly uniform fibres with well-controlled geometries and good optical transport characteristics4. So far, this technique has been restricted to particular materials5, 6, 7 and larger features8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Here we report on the design, fabrication and characterization of fibres made of conducting, semiconducting and insulating materials in intimate contact and in a variety of geometries. We demonstrate that this approach can be used to construct a tunable fibre photodetector comprising an amorphous semiconductor core contacted by metallic microwires, and surrounded by a cylindrical-shell resonant optical cavity. Such a fibre is sensitive to illumination along its entire length (tens of meters), thus forming a photodetecting element of dimensionality one. We also construct a grid of such fibres that can identify the location of an illumination point. The advantage of this type of photodetector array is that it needs a number of elements of only order N, in contrast to the conventional order N2 for detector arrays made of photodetecting elements of dimensionality zero.
- Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Center for Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Mehmet Bayindir1Yoel Fink1,2,3 Email: yoel@mit.edu
Email: mehmet@mit.edu
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