Stacked polarimeters with twisted black phosphorus

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fiber-integrated, nano-thick polarimeter using stacked black phosphorus units for real-time, high-speed polarization detection, replacing bulky traditional systems with a compact, ultrafast device capable of advanced imaging applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel, self-powered, ultrafast polarimeter based on twisted black phosphorus stacks for in-line light polarization analysis, enabling compact and high-speed optical systems.

Findings

Achieved unambiguous detection of linear and circular polarized light.

Demonstrated Hadamard single-pixel polarimetric imaging.

Showed potential for high-speed polarization-division-multiplexed imaging.

Abstract

The real-time, in-line analysis of light polarization is critical in optical communication networks, which suffers from the complex systems with numerous bulky opto-electro-mechanical elements tandemly arranged along optical path. Here, we propose a fiber-integrated polarimeter with nano-thickness by vertically stacking three two-dimensional (2D) materials based photodetection units. We demonstrate a self-power-calibrated, ultrafast, unambiguous detection of linear (LP) and circular polarized (CP) light according to the symmetry broken induced linear photogalvanic effects (LPGE) and circular photogalvanic effects (CPGE) in black phosphorous (BP) units, which are twistedly stacked to substitute traditional mechanical rotation of polarizers. As a demonstration, we achieve Hadamard single-pixel polarimetric imaging by the polarimeter to recognize the polarization distributions, showing potential in high-speed polarization-division-multiplexed imaging and real-time polarized endoscopy. This work provides a new strategy for next-generation ultracompact optical and optoelectronic systems, and guides a way for developing high-resolution arrayed devices with multifunctional pixels.