On-Chip Multidimensional Dynamic Control of Twisted Moir\'e Photonic Crystal for Smart Sensing and Imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a MEMS-integrated twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor capable of simultaneously controlling multiple degrees of freedom, enabling high-precision spectropolarimetric sensing within a scalable, reconfigurable nanophotonics platform.

Contribution

It demonstrates dynamic, multidimensional control of twisted moiré photonic crystals for advanced sensing applications, a significant step beyond previous static or single-parameter modulation methods.

Findings

Achieved simultaneous wavelength and polarization resolution.

Demonstrated high-accuracy spectropolarimetric reconstruction.

Operates effectively over a broad telecom bandwidth.

Abstract

Reconfigurable optics, optical systems that have a dynamically tunable configuration, are emerging as a new frontier in photonics research. Recently, twisted moir\'e photonic crystal has become a competitive candidate for implementing reconfigurable optics because of its high degree of tunability. However, despite its great potential as versatile optics components, simultaneous and dynamic modulation of multiple degrees of freedom in twisted moir\'e photonic crystal has remained out of reach, severely limiting its area of application. In this paper, we present a MEMS-integrated twisted moir\'e photonic crystal sensor that offers precise control over the interlayer gap and twist angle between two photonic crystal layers, and demonstrate an active twisted moir\'e photonic crystal-based optical sensor that can simultaneously resolve wavelength and polarization. Leveraging twist- and gap-tuned resonance modes, we achieve high-accuracy spectropolarimetric reconstruction of light using an adaptive sensing algorithm over a broad operational bandwidth in the telecom range and full Poincar\'e sphere. Our research showcases the remarkable capabilities of multidimensional control over emergent degrees of freedom in reconfigurable nanophotonics platforms and establishes a scalable pathway towards creating comprehensive flat-optics devices suitable for versatile light manipulation and information processing tasks.