Tekcan Burak, van Kasteren Brad, Grayli Sasan V, Shen Daozhi, Tam Man Chun, Ban Dayan, Wasilewski Zbigniew, Tsen Adam W, Reimer Michael E
Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jun 11;12(1):9663. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-13537-y.
The realization of a semiconductor near-unity absorber in the infrared will provide new capabilities to transform applications in sensing, health, imaging, and quantum information science, especially where portability is required. Typically, commercially available portable single-photon detectors in the infrared are made from bulk semiconductors and have efficiencies well below unity. Here, we design a novel semiconductor nanowire metamaterial, and show that by carefully arranging an InGaAs nanowire array and by controlling their shape, we demonstrate near-unity absorption efficiency at room temperature. We experimentally show an average measured efficiency of 93% (simulated average efficiency of 97%) over an unprecedented wavelength range from 900 to 1500 nm. We further show that the near-unity absorption results from the collective response of the nanowire metamaterial, originating from both coupling into leaky resonant waveguide and transverse modes. These coupling mechanisms cause light to be absorbed directly from the top and indirectly as light scatters from one nanowire to neighbouring ones. This work leads to the possible development of a new generation of quantum detectors with unprecedented broadband near-unity absorption in the infrared, while operating near room temperature for a wider range of applications.
实现红外波段的半导体近完美吸收体将为传感、健康、成像和量子信息科学等领域的应用带来变革，特别是在需要便携性的场合。通常，市售的便携式红外单光子探测器由体半导体制成，效率远低于完美水平。在此，我们设计了一种新型半导体纳米线超材料，并表明通过精心排列铟镓砷纳米线阵列并控制其形状，我们在室温下实现了近完美吸收效率。我们通过实验表明，在前所未有的900至1500纳米波长范围内，平均测量效率为93%（模拟平均效率为97%）。我们进一步表明，近完美吸收源于纳米线超材料的集体响应，这是由耦合到泄漏谐振波导和横向模式共同引起的。这些耦合机制使得光既能直接从顶部被吸收，也能在光从一根纳米线散射到相邻纳米线时被间接吸收。这项工作可能促成新一代量子探测器的开发，该探测器在红外波段具有前所未有的宽带近完美吸收，同时在接近室温的条件下工作，适用于更广泛的应用。
