Switchable Unipolar-Barrier Van der Waals Heterostructures with Natural Anisotropy for Full Linear Polarimetry Detection.

Deng, Wenjie; Dai, Mingjin; Wang, Chongwu; You, Congya; Chen, Wenduo; Han, Song; Han, Jiayue; Wang, Fakun et al. · Adv Mater · 2022

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Polarization-resolved photodetection in a compact footprint is of great interest for ultraminiaturized polarimeters to be used in a wide range of applications. However, probing the states of polarization (SOP) in materials with natural anisotropy are usually weak, limited by the material's natural dichroism or diattenuation. Here, a twisted unipolar-barrier van der Waals heterostructure (vdWH) to construct a bias-switchable polarization detection for retrieval of full SOP (from 0 to 180°) for linear polarized incident light is reported. As a demonstration example, this study realizes the concept in a b-AsP/WS<sub>2</sub> /b-AsP vdWH relying on the natural anisotropic properties of the materials without using additional plasmonic/metasurface nanostructures to realize linear polarimetry in the mid-infrared range. Polarimetric imaging is further demonstrated with the developed linear polarimetry by directly displaying the Jones-vector-described SOP distribution of certain target object. This method, with the capabilities of detecting full linear SOP, is promising for the next-generation on-chip miniaturized polarimeters.