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An adaptive moiré sensor for spectro-polarimetric hyperimaging

Nature Photonics volume 19, pages 463–470 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Moiré photonic structures permit the engineering of optical band structures and light–matter interactions, offering new opportunities in photonics and optoelectronics, paving the way for new nanophotonic applications such as ultra-low threshold lasing, and versatile nonlinear and quantum light sources; however, the lack of in situ tunability has limited the potential of these structures until now. For example, the lack of control of the twist angle is an obstacle to high-resolution material spectroscopy and the development of new applications that require moiré optical properties. Here we present a microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-integrated twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor with a tunable interlayer distance and twist angle. The MEMS actuators modulate the wavelength and polarization resonances of the photonic crystal sensor via a twist- and gap-tuned moiré scattering effect. Using a reconstruction algorithm, this chip-based sensor can be used to simultaneously resolve the spectrum and polarization state of a wide-band signal in the telecommunications range and the full Poincaré sphere. We also demonstrate hyperspectral and hyperpolarimetric imaging using this single sensor. Our research illustrates some of the remarkable applications of multidimensional control of degrees of freedom in twisted moiré photonic platforms and establishes a scalable pathway towards creating comprehensive flat-optics devices suitable for versatile light manipulation and information processing.

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Fig. 1: Computational reconstruction of multidimensional information.
Fig. 2: Microelectromechanically tunable twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor.
Fig. 3: Tunable optical responses.
Fig. 4: Sensing principle and results.
Fig. 5: Hyperspectral and hyperpolarimetric imaging.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

Code availability

The code used in this paper is available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Güney, S. Kocaman, G. Zhong and Y. Liu for discussions. We thank F. Capasso and M. Loncar for the access to the optical instruments, electrical instruments and other facilities. E.M., H.T. and F.D. acknowledge support from NSF (ECCS-2234513) and DARPA (URFAO: GR510802). S.F. and L.B. acknowledge the support from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant no. FA9550-21-1-0244), and from the US Office of Naval Research (grant no. N00014-20-1-2450). A.Y. acknowledges support from the Army Research Office under grant no. W911NF-21-2-0147 and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF 9468. E.H. acknowledges support from NSF (ECCS-2234513). The sample fabrication was performed at Harvard University Center for Nanoscale Systems, which is a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Network and is supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF award 1541959.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Haoning Tang, Beicheng Lou.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Haoning Tang, Fan Du, Mingjie Zhang, Xueqi Ni, Evelyn Hu & Eric Mazur

  2. Department of Applied Physics and Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Beicheng Lou & Shanhui Fan

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Guangqi Gao & Yuan Cao

  4. Department of Physics, Faculty of Art and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Amir Yacoby & Yuan Cao

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Contributions

Several people contributed to the work described in this paper. H.T. and B.L. conceived the basic idea for this work. H.T and B.L. prepared the paper and Supplementary Information. H.T. and Y.C. designed the MEMS and optics device, performed the nanofabrication, designed the electrical measurement set-up and performed the experiments. G.G, F.D. and H.T. performed optical measurements. B.L. and G.G. designed the reconstruction algorithm and performed measurement data analysis for sensing and imaging. M.Z., X.N., H.T. and B.L. performed numerical simulations and analytical calculations. E.M., S.F., Y.C. and H.T. supervised the research and development of the paper. All authors subsequently took part in the revision process, approved the final copy and provided feedback on the paper throughout its development.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Haoning Tang, Yuan Cao, Shanhui Fan or Eric Mazur.

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The authors declare no other competing interests.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Illustration fabrication process.

(a) Vias drilling and coating. (b) Photonic crystal (PhC) fabrication. (c) MEMS process. (d) Vapour releasing. (e) Top layer fabrication and bonding. Blue: Silicon. Grey: Silicon oxide. Purple: Silicon Nitride. Orange: Conductive layer. Yellow: SU-8.

Extended Data Fig. 2

The sideview of the packaged MEMS-TMPhC device wire bonded to printed circuit board.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Illustration of vertical actuator driving principle.

The vertical actuator consists of a parallel capacitor that provides a driving force downwards, and a lever that magnifies the vertical translation 4 times in the reversed direction.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Illustration of rotary three-phase stepper driving principle.

(a) Illustration of the rotary actuator with three-phase electrode. (b) Driving microstepping voltage waveform for driving the rotary actuator.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Band structure measurement of moiré PhC.

(a) Schematic of the measurement set-up. The red line represents the incident light, its direct transmission, and radiation-induced scattering from the bilayer lattice. POL - Polarizer; QWP - Quarter-Wave Plate; L - Lens; OBJ - Objective Lens. (b) Band structure measured by stacking iso-frequency contours for each wavelength. The dashed line area on the top surface shows the iso-frequency contour, and the cross-section reveals the band structure. (c) Band structure measured by SuperK laser.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Simulated far-field polarization distribution in the momentum space for different moiré photonic crystal configurations.

Far-field polarization distribution in the momentum space when \(\theta =\) 12° and \(h=400\) nm (top row), \(\theta =\) 12° and \(h=500\) nm (middle row), and \(\theta =\) 10° and \(h=500\) nm (bottom row). The polarization fields of emitting upward and downward are different. The blue ellipse represents left-hand polarization (LCP) states, and the orange ellipse represents right-hand polarization (RCP) states. The winding centres of the LCP and RCP are the polarization singularity C-point. The rotational center of the two PhC slabs are perfectly aligned.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–7 and Tables 1 and 2 for illustration purposes.

Supplementary Video 1

Real-time measurement for the dynamic tuning of the moiré pattern.

Supplementary Video 2

Band structures for different Vz (interlayer gaps).

Supplementary Video 3

Iso-frequency contour for different Vz (interlayer gaps).

Supplementary Video 4

Band structures for different twist angle.

Supplementary Video 5

Iso-frequency contour for different twist angles.

Supplementary Video 6

Iso-frequency contour when rotating quater-wave plate.

Supplementary Video 7

Iso-frequency contour when rotating polarizer.

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Tang, H., Lou, B., Du, F. et al. An adaptive moiré sensor for spectro-polarimetric hyperimaging. Nat. Photon. 19, 463–470 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01650-z

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