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1. Waveguide-integrated mid-infrared photodetection using graphene on a scalable chalcogenide glass platform

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31607-7  

   Goldstein, Jordan ; Lin, Hongtao ; Deckoff-Jones, Skylar ; Hempel, Marek ; Lu, Ang-Yu ; Richardson, Kathleen A. ; Palacios, Tomás ; Kong, Jing ; Hu, Juejun ; Englund, Dirk ( July 2022 , Nature Communications)

   The development of compact and fieldable mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy devices represents a critical challenge for distributed sensing with applications from gas leak detection to environmental monitoring. Recent work has focused on mid-IR photonic integrated circuit (PIC) sensing platforms and waveguide-integrated mid-IR light sources and detectors based on semiconductors such as PbTe, black phosphorus and tellurene. However, material bandgaps and reliance on SiO₂substrates limit operation to wavelengthsλ ≲ 4 μm. Here we overcome these challenges with a chalcogenide glass-on-CaF₂PIC architecture incorporating split-gate photothermoelectric graphene photodetectors. Our design extends operation toλ = 5.2 μm with a Johnson noise-limited noise-equivalent power of 1.1 nW/Hz^1/2, no fall-off in photoresponse up tof = 1 MHz, and a predicted 3-dB bandwidth off_3dB > 1 GHz. This mid-IR PIC platform readily extends to longer wavelengths and opens the door to applications from distributed gas sensing and portable dual comb spectroscopy to weather-resilient free space optical communications.
2. Low-loss composite photonic platform based on 2D semiconductor monolayers

   Ipshita Datta, Sang Hoon ( January 2020 , Nature photographer)

   Two dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are promising for optical modulation, detection, and light emission since their material properties can be tuned on-demand via electrostatic doping1–21. The optical properties of TMDs have been shown to change drastically with doping in the wavelength range near the excitonic resonances22–26. However, little is known about the effect of doping on the optical properties of TMDs away from these resonances, where the material is transparent and therefore could be leveraged in photonic circuits. Here, we probe the electro-optic response of monolayer TMDs at near infrared (NIR) wavelengths (i.e. deep in the transparency regime), by integrating them on silicon nitride (SiN) photonic structures to induce strong light -matter interaction with the monolayer. We dope the monolayer to carrier densities of (7.2 ± 0.8) × 1013 cm-2, by electrically gating the TMD using an ionic liquid [P14+] [FAP-]. We show strong electro-refractive response in monolayer tungsten disulphide (WS2) at NIR wavelengths by measuring a large change in the real part of refractive index ∆n = 0.53, with only a minimal change in the imaginary part ∆k = 0.004. We demonstrate photonic devices based on electrostatically gated SiN-WS2 phase modulator withmore »high efficiency ( ) of 0.8 V · cm. We show that the induced phase change relative to the change in absorption (i.e. ∆n/∆k) is approximately 125, that is significantly higher than the ones achieved in 2D materials at different spectral ranges and in bulk materials, commonly employed for silicon photonic modulators such as Si and III-V on Si, while accompanied by negligible insertion loss. Efficient phase modulators are critical for enabling large-scale photonic systems for applications such as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), phased arrays, optical switching, coherent optical communication and quantum and optical neural networks27–30.« less
3. Metasurfaces for Sensing Applications: Gas, Bio and Chemical

   https://doi.org/10.3390/s22186896  

   Tabassum, Shawana ; Nayemuzzaman, SK ; Kala, Manish ; Kumar Mishra, Akhilesh ; Mishra, Satyendra Kumar ( September 2022 , Sensors)

   Performance of photonic devices critically depends upon their efficiency on controlling the flow of light therein. In the recent past, the implementation of plasmonics, two-dimensional (2D) materials and metamaterials for enhanced light-matter interaction (through concepts such as sub-wavelength light confinement and dynamic wavefront shape manipulation) led to diverse applications belonging to spectroscopy, imaging and optical sensing etc. While 2D materials such as graphene, MoS2 etc., are still being explored in optical sensing in last few years, the application of plasmonics and metamaterials is limited owing to the involvement of noble metals having a constant electron density. The capability of competently controlling the electron density of noble metals is very limited. Further, due to absorption characteristics of metals, the plasmonic and metamaterial devices suffer from large optical loss. Hence, the photonic devices (sensors, in particular) require that an efficient dynamic control of light at nanoscale through field (electric or optical) variation using substitute low-loss materials. One such option may be plasmonic metasurfaces. Metasurfaces are arrays of optical antenna-like anisotropic structures (sub-wavelength size), which are designated to control the amplitude and phase of reflected, scattered and transmitted components of incident light radiation. The present review put forth recent development on metamaterial andmore »metastructure-based various sensors.« less
4. Explore uncooled quantum dots/graphene nanohybrid infrared detectors based on quantum dots/graphene heterostructures

   https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2556930  

   Wu, Judy Z. ( April 2020 , Infrared Technology and Applications XLVI, Vol 11407 (2020) SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing (2020))

   Heterojunction nanohybrids based on low-dimension semiconductors, including colloidal quantum dots (QDs) and 2D atomic materials (graphene, transition metal chalcogenides, etc) provide a fascinating platform to design of new photonic and optoelectronic devices that take advantages of the enhanced light-solid interaction attributed to their strong quantum confinement and superior charge mobility for uncooled photodetectors with a high gain up to 1010. In these heterojunction nanohybrids, the van der Waals (vdW) interface plays a critical role in controlling the optoelectronic process including exciton dissociation by the interface built-in field that drives the follow-up charge injection and transport to graphene. In this paper, we present our recent progress in development of such heterostructures nanohybrids for uncooled infrared detectors including PbS and FeS2 QDs/graphene and 2D vdW heterostructures MoTe2/Graphene/SnS2 and GaTe/InSe. We have found that nonstoichiometric Fe1–xS2 QDs (x = 0.01–0.107) with strong localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) can have much enhanced absorption in broadband from ultraviolet to short-wave infrared (SWIR, 1–3 μm). Consequently, the LSPR Fe1–xS2 QDs/graphene heterostructure photodetectors exhibit extraordinary photoresponsivity in exceeding 4.32 ×106 A/W and figure-of-merit detectivity D* < 7.50 ×1012 Jones in the broadband of UV–Vis–SWIR at room temperature. The 2D vdW heterostructures allows novel designs of interface bandmore »alignments with uncooled NIR-SWIR D* up to 1012 Jones. These results illustrate that the heterostructure nanohybrids provide a promising pathway for low-cost, printable and flexible infrared detectors and imaging systems.« less
5. Effects of disorder on two-photon absorption in amorphous semiconductors

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.391197  

   Dutta, Nikita S. ; Almeida, Juliana M. P. ; Mendonça, Cleber R. ; Arnold, Craig B. ( June 2020 , Optics Letters)

   Structural disorder inherent to amorphous materials affords them unique, tailorable properties desirable for diverse applications, but our ability to exploit these phenomena is limited by a lack of understanding of complex structure-property relationships. Here we focus on nonlinear optical absorption and derive a relationship between disorder and the two-photon absorption (2PA) coefficient. We employ an open-aperture Z-scan to measure the 2PA spectra of arsenic (III) sulfide (${\mathrm{A}\mathrm{s}}_2{\mathrm{S}}_3$) chalcogenide glass films processed with two solvents that impart different levels of structural disorder. We find that the effect of solvent choice on 2PA depends on the energy of the exciting photons and explain this as a consequence of bonding disorder and electron state localization. Our results demonstrate how optical nonlinearities in${\mathrm{A}\mathrm{s}}_2{\mathrm{S}}_3$can be enhanced through informed processing and present a fundamental relationship between disorder and 2PA for a generalized amorphous solid.