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Solution-processed inorganic perovskite crystals as achromatic quarter-wave plates

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 813–816 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Waveplates are widely used in photonics to control the polarization of light1,2. Often, they are fabricated from birefringent crystals that have different refractive indices along and normal to the crystal axis. Similar optical components are found in the natural world, including the eyes of mantis shrimp3,4 and the iridescence of giant clams5, fish6 and plants7. Optical retardation in biology relies on sophisticated self-assembly, whereas man-made systems comprise multiple-layered materials8,9,10,11. Here we report a discovery that bridges these two design principles. We observe wideband achromatic retardation in the visible and near-infrared (532–800 nm) regions for Cs4PbBr6 perovskite crystals embedded with CsPbBr3 nanocrystals. We explain our observations as matched dispersions of the refractive indices of the ordinary and extraordinary rays caused by the ordered embedding of the nanocrystals in the host. The wideband performance and ease of fabrication of these perovskite materials are attractive for future applications.

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Fig. 1: Illustration of crystal birefringence and the samples of Cs4PbBr6 crystals without and with embedded CsPbBr3 NCs.
Fig. 2: The measurement setup and the results of polarization modulation.
Fig. 3: The analysis of the degree of polarization measurements with fitting results.

Data availability

Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61722502, 61727808 and 12074037), the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Research Grants Council Joint Research Scheme (51761165021). G.D.S. acknowledges the Bio-Inspired Energy Program of CIFAR. We thank C. Ding for measuring the Tyndall light scattering, Y. Ge for fabricating the CdxZn1−xSeyS1−y@silica monolith, E. H. Sargent and R. Quintero-Bermudez for structural analysis, K. Shi for helpful discussions on the polarization measurement. We would like to thank BIT Experimental Center of Advanced Materials for providing the experimental equipments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIIT Key Laboratory for Low-dimensional Quantum Structure and Devices, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Xiaomei Chen, Wen-gao Lu, Jialun Tang & Haizheng Zhong

  2. Beijing Engineering Research Center of Mixed Reality and Advanced Display, School of Optics and Photonics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Wen-gao Lu & Yongtian Wang

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Nanophotonics and Ultrafine Optoelectronic Systems, School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Yongyou Zhang

  4. Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Gregory D. Scholes

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  1. Xiaomei Chen
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Contributions

H.Z. conceived and supervised the project. X.C., W.-g.L. and J.T. fabricated the materials. X.C., W.-g.L. and Y.W. carried out the spectroscopic measurements. Y.Z. proposed the theoretical model and performed the fitting. H.Z., G.D.S., X.C., Y.W. and Y.Z. wrote the manuscript with contribution from all the authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yongyou Zhang or Haizheng Zhong.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Daniela Täuber and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–23, Discussion and Tables 1 and 2.

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Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for Fig. 3.

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Chen, X., Lu, Wg., Tang, J. et al. Solution-processed inorganic perovskite crystals as achromatic quarter-wave plates. Nat. Photon. 15, 813–816 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00865-0

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