High-Transmission Mid-Infrared Bandpass Filters Using Hybrid Metal-Dielectric Metasurfaces for CO2 Sensing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid metal-dielectric metasurface operating in transmission mode for mid-infrared spectroscopy, achieving high efficiency and narrow bandwidth, suitable for CO2 gas sensing applications.

Contribution

The work presents a novel hybrid metal-dielectric metasurface design that enables efficient transmission-mode MIR filtering, overcoming limitations of existing reflection-only dielectric metasurfaces.

Findings

Achieved 80% transmission efficiency at 2.6 μm

Demonstrated narrow bandwidth with 0.4 μm FWHM

Successfully deployed as a CO2 sensing filter with ~0.04% detection limit

Abstract

Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy is a powerful technique employed for a variety of applications, including gas sensing, industrial inspection, astronomy, surveillance, and imaging. Thin-film narrowband interference filters, targeted to specific absorption bands of target molecules, are commonly deployed for cost-effective MIR sensing systems. These devices require complex and time-consuming fabrication processes. Also, their customization on the micro-scale for emerging miniaturized applications is challenging. Plasmonic nanostructure arrays operating in reflection and transmission modes have been developed for MIR. However, they experience undesirable characteristics, such as broad spectra and low reflection/transmission efficiencies. All-dielectric metasurfaces have low intrinsic losses and have emerged as a substitute for plasmonic metasurfaces in MIR spectroscopy. Nevertheless, they typically operate only in reflection mode. In this work, we present a hybrid metal-dielectric metasurface for MIR spectroscopy operating in transmission mode. The metasurface is composed of germanium (Ge) atop aluminum (Al) cylinders, and we show that the transmission response arises because of the hybridization of modes arising from the Ge and the Al structures. The presented metasurface has a high transmission efficiency of 80 % at $\lambda = 2.6\ \mu\text{m}$, and a narrow full-width-at-half-maximum of $0.4\ \mu\text{m}$. We show numerical simulations, successful fabrication using a straightforward fabrication method, and deployment as the in-line optical filter in a CO$_2$ gas detection with a limit of detection of ~0.04% (a few hundred ppm). Our work demonstrates the potential for hybrid metasurfaces as in-line gas sensing optical filters in MIR spectroscopy.