Bionic Detectors Based on Low-Bandgap Inorganic Perovskite for Selective NIR-I Photon Detection and Imaging

Abstract

Fluorescence imaging with photodetectors (PDs) toward near-infrared I (NIR-I) photons (700-900 nm), the so-called "optical window" in organisms, has provided an important path for tracing biological processes in vivo. With both excitation photons and fluorescence photons in this narrow range, a stringent requirement arises that the fluorescence signal should be efficiently differentiated for effective sensing, which cannot be fulfilled by common PDs with a broadband response such as Si-based PDs. In this work, delicate optical microcavities are designed to develop a series of bionic PDs with selective response to NIR-I photons, the merits of a narrowband response with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of <50 nm, and tunability to cover the NIR-I range are highlighted. Inorganic halide perovskite CsPb_0.5 Sn_0.5 I₃ is chosen as the photoactive layer with comprehensive bandgap and film engineering. As a result, these bionic PDs offer a signal/noise ratio of ≈10⁶ , a large bandwidth of 543 kHz and an ultralow detection limit of 0.33 nW. Meanwhile, the peak responsivity (R) and detectivity (D*) reach up to 270 mA W^-1 and 5.4 × 10¹⁴ Jones, respectively. Finally, proof-of-concept NIR-I imaging using the PDs is demonstrated to show great promise in real-life application.

Keywords: NIR-I detection; bionic photodetector; fluorescence imaging; halide perovskite; narrowband detection.