Miniaturized Computational Photonic Molecule Spectrometer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a highly miniaturized computational photonic molecule spectrometer that overcomes traditional trade-offs between resolution and bandwidth, enabling advanced portable sensing applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel miniaturized spectrometer design utilizing mode-hybridization effects to expand bandwidth and resolution, surpassing previous device limitations.

Findings

Achieved ultra-high spectral resolution in a miniaturized device

Expanded operation bandwidth through mode-hybridization effects

Enabled applications in gas and nanoscale biomedical sensing

Abstract

Miniaturized spectrometry system is playing an essential role for materials analysis in the development of in-situ or portable sensing platforms across research and industry. However, there unavoidably exists trade-offs between the resolution and operation bandwidth as the device scale down. Here, we report an extreme miniaturized computational photonic molecule (PM) spectrometer utilizing the diverse spectral characteristics and mode-hybridization effect of split eigenfrequencies and super-modes, which effectively eliminates the inherent periodicity and expands operation bandwidth with ultra-high spectral resolution. These results of dynamic control of the frequency, amplitude, and phase of photons in the photonic multi-atomic systems, pave the way to the development of benchtop sensing platforms for applications previously unfeasible due to resolution-bandwidth-footprint limitations, such as in gas sensing or nanoscale biomedical sensing.