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Mid-infrared photonics is the practical application of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between two and approximately twenty micrometres. This region includes a number of so-called water windows: wavelengths of light that can propagate through the Earth’s atmosphere without being absorbed by water molecules. It is also highly relevant in spectroscopy.
Dynamic angular tuning of thermal emission is a problem in the field of thermal metasurfaces. Here, the authors make a thermal emission device using electrostatic gates, opening an avenue for radiative heat management and mid-infrared communication.
Wide-field mid-infrared photothermal imaging is developed to supress the resolution degradation caused by photo-thermal heat diffusion. By employing a single-objective synthetic-aperture imaging with synchronized subnanosecond mid-infrared and visible light sources, spatial resolution of 120 nm is obtained.
This work explores the boundary between nanocrystal and relative bulk, expanding the photoresponse wavelength limitation of colloidal quantum dot photodetector up to very long wave infrared.
The strong dispersion of surface phonon polaritons in silicon carbide films is exploited to tailor the orbital angular momentum of phonon polaritons, achieving reconfigurable polaritonic optical vortices that are attractive for orbital-angular-momentum-enabled light–matter interactions at mid-infrared frequencies.
Using gas cells for spectroscopic studies opens possibility for miniaturized platforms that can be integrated with other optical components. Here the authors demonstrate molecular rovibrational spectroscopy by confining molecules in a cell of subwavelength thickness.
Mid-infrared hyperspectral imaging is valuable for sample characterisation but suffers limited scanning rates. The authors develop such an imaging system based on parametric upconversion of supercontinuum illumination in the Fourier plane, enabling a 100-Hz acquisition rate of spectral datacubes.
The performance of infrared photodiodes designed with narrow-bandgap semiconductors is limited by inherent noise and the need for a low-temperature operation to mitigate it, while they also face a speed–efficiency trade-off.
The near-field chirality of a single-symmetry achiral object enables polarization-dependent unidirectional photocurrent generation, and the vectorial output paves a way for a new family of geometric photodetectors.
