Giant Photoresponsivity of Mid-Infrared Hyperbolic Metamaterials in the Quantum Regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nanopatterned hyperbolic metamaterials can achieve highly efficient mid-infrared rectification through slow-light modes, significantly enhancing photon-to-electron conversion for energy harvesting and photodetectors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design of hyperbolic metamaterials with slow-light modes that enable ultrafast optical rectification in the mid-infrared regime.

Findings

Achieved orders of magnitude higher efficiency than conventional rectennas.

Demonstrated broadband and wide-angle mid-infrared rectification.

Supported ultrafast optical rectification via photon-assisted tunneling.

Abstract

We explore broadband, wide-angle mid-infrared rectification based on nanopatterned hyperbolic metamaterials (HMM), composed of two dissimilar metals separated by a sub-nanometer tunnel barrier. The exotic slow-light modes supported by such periodically trenched HMMs efficiently trap incident radiation in massively parallel metal-insulator-metal tunnel junctions supporting ultrafast optical rectification induced by photon-assisted tunneling. This leads to highly efficient photon-to-electron conversion, orders of magnitude larger than conventional rectennas. Our results promise an impact on infrared energy harvesters and plasmonic photodetectors.