Twisted black phosphorus-based van der Waals stacks for fiber-integrated polarimeters

Yifeng Xiong; Yushu Wang; Runze Zhu; Haotian Xu; Chenhui Wu; Jinhui Chen; Yang Ma; Yuan Liu; Ye Chen; Kenji Watanabe; Takashi Taniguchi; Mengzhu Shi; Xianhui Chen; Yanqing Lu; Peng Zhan; Yufeng Hao; Fei Xu

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abo0375

Twisted black phosphorus-based van der Waals stacks for fiber-integrated polarimeters

Sci Adv. 2022 May 6;8(18):eabo0375. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo0375. Epub 2022 May 4.

Authors

Yifeng Xiong¹, Yushu Wang¹, Runze Zhu¹, Haotian Xu¹, Chenhui Wu¹, Jinhui Chen², Yang Ma¹, Yuan Liu¹, Ye Chen¹, Kenji Watanabe³, Takashi Taniguchi⁴, Mengzhu Shi^{5

6}, Xianhui Chen^{5

6}, Yanqing Lu¹, Peng Zhan⁷, Yufeng Hao¹, Fei Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, and Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
² Institute of Electromagnetics and Acoustics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
³ Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan.
⁴ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan.
⁵ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Physics and CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly-coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
⁶ CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
⁷ School of Physics and National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.

Abstract

The real-time, in-line analysis of light polarization is critical in optical networks, currently suffering from complex systems with numerous bulky opto-electro-mechanical elements tandemly arranged along the optical path. Here, we design and fabricate a fiber-integrated polarimeter by vertically stacking three photodetection units based on six-layer van der Waals materials, including one bismuth selenide (Bi₂Se₃) layer for power calibration, two twisted black phosphorus (BP) layers for polarization detection, and three hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layers for encapsulation. The self-power-calibrated, self-driven, and unambiguous detection of both linearly polarized (LP) and circularly polarized (CP) light is realized by the broken symmetry-induced linear photogalvanic effects (LPGEs) and circular photogalvanic effects (CPGEs) in the two BP units. Moreover, the device enables single-pixel polarimetric imaging to acquire spatial polarization information. The ultracompact device structure, free from external optical and mechanical modules, may inspire the development of miniaturized optical and optoelectronic systems.