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Geometric filterless photodetectors for mid-infrared spin light

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 171–178 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Free-space circularly polarized light (CPL) detection, requiring polarizers and wave plates, is well established, but such a spatial degree of freedom is unfortunately absent in integrated on-chip optoelectronics. The filterless CPL photodetectors reported so far suffer from an intrinsic small discrimination ratio, vulnerability to the non-CPL field components and low responsivity. Here we report a distinct paradigm of geometric photodetectors in the mid-infrared, exhibiting a substantial discrimination ratio of 84, a close-to-perfect CPL-specific response, a zero-bias responsivity of 392 V W−1 at room temperature and a detectivity of ellipticity down to 0.03° Hz−1/2. Our approach makes use of a plasmonic nanostructures array with judiciously designed symmetry, assisted by graphene ribbons, to electrically read their near-field optical information. This geometry-empowered recipe for infrared photodetectors provides a robust, direct, strict and high-quality solution to on-chip filterless CPL detection and unlocks new opportunities for integrated functional optoelectronic devices.

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Fig. 1: Concept of geometric photodetectors for CPL-specific detection.
Fig. 2: Mirror-symmetric meta-atoms with infinite discrimination ratio.
Fig. 3: Rotational symmetry of the polarization-dependent responsivities in meta-atoms.
Fig. 4: Enhanced CPL-specific detection using graphene ribbons.

Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in this paper are present in the paper or the Supplementary Information. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Research Foundation (grant no. NRF-CRP22-2019-0006) and Advanced Research and Technology Innovation Centre (grant no. A-0005947-16-00). C.W.Q acknowledges the financial support from the National Research Foundation (grant no. NRF-CRP26-2021-0004). C.L. acknowledges financial support from the National Research Foundation Singapore (grant no. NRF-CRP15-2015-02). Y.C. acknowledges support from start-up funding of the University of Science and Technology of China and the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program. Y.L. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 92163123). W.L. acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants nos. 62134009 and 62121005) and the Innovation Grant of Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP). K.S.N. is grateful to the Ministry of Education, Singapore (Research Centre of Excellence award to the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, I-FIM, project no. EDUNC-33-18-279-V12) and Royal Society (UK, grant no. RSRP\R\190000) for support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Jingxuan Wei, Junsheng Xie, Chengkuo Lee & Cheng-Wei Qiu

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behaviour and Design of Materials, Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Yang Chen

  3. Interdisciplinary Center for Quantum Information, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Ying Li

  4. International Joint Innovation Center, Key Lab of Advanced Micro/Nano Electronic Devices & Smart Systems of Zhejiang, Zhejiang University, Haining, China

    Ying Li

  5. GPL Photonics Lab, State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China

    Wei Li

  6. Center for Intelligent Sensors and MEMS, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Junsheng Xie & Chengkuo Lee

  7. Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Kostya S. Novoselov

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  1. Jingxuan Wei
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Contributions

J.W. and C.-W.Q. conceived the project. J.W. and Y.C. carried out the theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. J.W. fabricated the samples. J.W., J.X. and C.L. carried out and contributed to the device characterization. J.W., Y.C., Y.L., W.L., C.L., K.S.N. and C.-W.Q. discussed and analysed the numerical and experimental results. All authors discussed and contributed to the manuscript. C.-W.Q. oversaw the whole project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chengkuo Lee or Cheng-Wei Qiu.

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Supplementary Notes 1–5, Figs. 1–27 and Table 1.

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Wei, J., Chen, Y., Li, Y. et al. Geometric filterless photodetectors for mid-infrared spin light. Nat. Photon. 17, 171–178 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01115-7

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