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Mid-infrared photonics is the practical application of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between two and approximately twenty micrometres. This region includes a number of so-called water windows: wavelengths of light that can propagate through the Earth’s atmosphere without being absorbed by water molecules. It is also highly relevant in spectroscopy.
Mid-infrared 2 μm InAs/InP quantum-dot lasers is first demonstrated, with a low threshold current density of 118 A cm−2 per layer and a maximum operating temperature of 50 °C.
A novel magnetized plasma rotator based on Frequency-Variable Faraday Rotation (FVFR) in the nonlinear plasma wake is put forward, which can manipulate efficiently the polarization of relativistic mid to far-infrared optical pulses and even THz waves.
Laser-printed gold metasurface supporting symmetry-protected plasmonic quasi-bound states in the continuum (qBIC) was fabricated, comprehensively characterized and applied to demonstrate the first qBIC-empowered field-effect transistor device with HgTe quantum dot active medium.
Sources of chiral mid-infrared light are difficult to obtain. Here, the authors demonstrate that twisted bilayers of anisotropic α-MoO3 van der Waals crystals can emit mid-infrared thermal chiral radiation without any lithographic processes.
The performance of infrared photodiodes designed with narrow-bandgap semiconductors is limited by inherent noise and the need for a low-temperature operation to mitigate it, while they also face a speed–efficiency trade-off.
The near-field chirality of a single-symmetry achiral object enables polarization-dependent unidirectional photocurrent generation, and the vectorial output paves a way for a new family of geometric photodetectors.
