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Title: Anti-Hermitian photodetector facilitating efficient subwavelength photon sorting

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); Korea Univ., Seoul (Republic of Korea)
  2. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL (United States)

The ability to split an incident light beam into separate wavelength bands is central to a diverse set of optical applications, including imaging, biosensing, communication, photocatalysis, and photovoltaics. Entirely new opportunities are currently emerging with the recently demonstrated possibility to spectrally split light at a subwavelength scale with optical antennas. Unfortunately, such small structures offer limited spectral control and are hard to exploit in optoelectronic devices. Here, we overcome both challenges and demonstrate how within a single-layer metafilm one can laterally sort photons of different wavelengths below the free-space diffraction limit and extract a useful photocurrent. This chipscale demonstration of anti-Hermitian coupling between resonant photodetector elements also facilitates near-unity photon-sorting efficiencies, near-unity absorption, and a narrow spectral response (~30 nm) for the different wavelength channels. This work opens up entirely new design paradigms for image sensors and energy harvesting systems in which the active elements both sort and detect photons.

Research Organization:
Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0001293; FG07-ER46426
OSTI ID:
1470396
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1; Related Information: LMI partners with California Institute of Technology (lead); Harvard University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 54 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

Spin‐Selective and Wavelength‐Selective Demultiplexing Based on Waveguide‐Integrated All‐Dielectric Metasurfaces journal January 2019
Transparent multispectral photodetectors mimicking the human visual system journal November 2019
Fano resonance and polarization transformation induced by interpolarization coupling of Bloch surface waves journal March 2019
Spectral, spatial and polarization-selective perfect absorbers with large magnetic response for sensing and thermal emission control journal January 2019
Anomalous plasmon hybridization in nanoantennas near interfaces journal January 2019

Figures / Tables (3)