Circularly Polarized Light Detection Research Articles

\u03c0-Extended perylene diimide double-heterohelicenes as ambipolar organic semiconductors for broadband circularly polarized light detection

Despite great challenges, the development of new molecular structures with multiple and even conflicting characteristics are eagerly pursued for exploring advanced applications. To develop high-performance chiral organic semiconducting molecules, a distorted π-system is required for strong coupling with circularly polarized light (CPL), whereas planar π-stacking systems are necessary for high charge-carrier mobility. To address this dilemma, in this work, we introduce a skeleton merging approach through distortion of a perylene diimide (PDI) core with four fused heteroaromatics to form an ortho-π-extended PDI double-[7]heterohelicene. PDI double helicene inherits a high dissymmetry factor from the helicene skeleton, and the extended π-planar system concurrently maintains a high level of charge transport properties. In addition, ortho-π-extension of the PDI skeleton brings about near-infrared (NIR) light absorption and ambipolar charge transport abilities, endowing the corresponding organic phototransistors with high photoresponsivity of 450 and 120 mA W−1 in p- and n-type modes respectively, along with a high external quantum efficiency (89%) under NIR light irradiations. Remarkably, these multiple characteristics enable high-performance broadband CPL detections up to NIR spectral region with chiral organic semiconductors.

Self-powered circularly polarized light detector based on asymmetric chiral metamaterials

Circularly polarized light (CPL) has been given great attention because of its extensive application. While several devices for CPL detection have been studied, their performance is affected by the magnitude of photocurrent. In this paper, a self-powered photodetector based on hot electrons in chiral metamaterials is proposed and optimized. CPL can be distinguished by the direction of photocurrent without external bias owing to the interdigital electrodes with asymmetric chiral metamaterials. Distinguished by the direction of photocurrent, the device can easily detect the rotation direction of the CPL electric field, even if it only has a very weak responsivity. The responsivity of the proposed detector is near 1.9 mA/W at the wavelength of 1322 nm, which is enough to distinguish CPL. The detector we proposed has the potential for application in optical communication.

Tunable Layer Circular Photogalvanic Effect in Twisted Bilayers.

We develop a general theory of the layer circular photogalvanic effect (LCPGE) in quasi-two-dimensional chiral bilayers, which refers to the appearance of a polarization-dependent, out-of-plane static dipole moment induced by circularly polarized light. We elucidate the geometric origin of the LCPGE as two types of interlayer coordinate shift weighted by the quantum metric tensor and the Berry curvature, respectively. As a concrete example, we calculate the LCPGE in twisted bilayer graphene, and find that it exhibits a resonance peak whose frequency can be tuned from visible to infrared as the twisting angle varies. The LCPGE thus provides a promising route toward frequency-sensitive, circularly polarized light detection, particularly in the infrared range.

Circularly polarized light detection using chiral hybrid perovskite

Circularly polarized light (CPL) detection is required in various fields such as drug screening, security surveillance and quantum optics. Conventionally, CPL photodetector needs the installation of optical elements, imposing difficulties for integrated and flexible devices. The established CPL detectors without optical elements rely on chiral organic semiconductor and metal metamaterials, but they suffer from extremely low responsivity. Organic-inorganic hybrid materials combine CPL-sensitive absorption induced by chiral organics and efficient charge transport of inorganic frameworks, providing an option for direct CPL detection. Here we report the CPL detector using chiral organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, and obtain a device with responsivity of 797 mA W-1, detectivity of 7.1 × 1011 Jones, 3-dB frequency of 150 Hz and one-month stability, a competitive combined feature for circularly polarized light detection. Thanks to the solution processing, we further demonstrate flexible devices on polyethylene terephthalate substrate with comparable performance.

Chiral 2D Perovskites with a High Degree of Circularly Polarized Photoluminescence.

Chiral materials are of particular interest and have a wide range of potential applications in life science, material science, spintronic, and optoelectronic devices. Two-dimensional (2D) hybrid organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites have attracted increasing attention. Incorporating the chiral organic ligands into the layered lead iodide frameworks would introduce strong chirality in pure 2D perovskites for potential applications in circularly polarized light (CPL) emission and detection; nonetheless, studies on those aspects are still in their infancy. Here, we report on the strong CPL emission and sensitive CPL detection in the visible-wavelength range in pure chiral ( R-/ S-MBA)2PbI4 (MBA = C6H5C2H4NH3) 2D perovskites, which are successfully synthesized with a needle shape and millimeter size by incorporating the chiral molecules. The chiral 2D perovskites ( R-MBA)2PbI4 and ( S-MBA)2PbI4 exhibit an average degree of circularly polarized photoluminescence (PL) of 9.6% and 10.1% at 77 K, respectively, and a maximum degree of the circularly polarized PL of 17.6% is achieved in ( S-MBA)2PbI4. The degree of circularly polarized PL dramatically decreases with increasing temperature, implying that the lattice distortion induced by the incorporated chiral molecules and/or temperature-dependent spin flipping might be the origin for the observed chirality. Finally, CPL detection has been achieved with decent performance in our chiral 2D perovskite microplate/MoS2 heterostructural devices. The high degree of the circularly polarized PL and excellent CPL detection together with the layered nature of pure chiral 2D perovskites enables them to be a class of very promising materials for developing and exploring spin associated electronic devices based on the chiral 2D perovskites.

Circularly Polarized Luminescent Carbon Dot Nanomaterials of Helical Superstructures for Circularly Polarized Light Detection

AbstractCircularly polarized luminescent carbon dot nanomaterials of self‐organized helical superstructures based on cellulose nanocrystals enable strong, right‐handed, and multicolor tunable circularly polarized luminescence with extraordinary dissymmetry factors up to −0.74. The effects of emission intensity and carbon dots loading on the strength of the right‐handed circularly polarized luminescence are experimentally observed and theoretically explained. Potentials of the carbon dots–cellulose nanomaterials for circularly polarized light detection are demonstrated.