Full-Stokes polarimeters have various potential applications in the fields of image processing, biological diagnosis, military detection, and optical communication[
Journal of Semiconductors, Volume. 46, Issue 3, 032702(2025)
Broadband full-stokes polarimeter based on ReS2 nanobelts
Full-Stokes polarimeters can detect the polarization states of light, which is critical for the next-generation optical and optoelectronic systems. Traditional full-Stokes polarimeters are either based on bulky optical systems or complex metasurface structures, which cause the system complexity with unessential energy loss. Recently, filterless on-chip full-Stokes polarimeters have been demonstrated by using optical anisotropic materials which are able to detect the circularly polarized light. Nevertheless, those on-chip full-Stokes polarimeters have either the limited detection wavelength range or relatively poor device performance that need to be further improved. Here, we report the high performance broadband full-Stokes polarimeters based on rhenium disulfide (ReS2). While the anisotropic structure of the ReS2 introduces the in-plane optical anisotropy for linearly polarized light (LP) detection, Schottky contacts formed by the ReS2?Au could break the symmetry, which can detect circularly polarized (CP) light. By building a proper model, all four Stokes parameters can be extracted by using the ReS2 nanobelt device. The device delivers a photoresponsivity of 181 A/W, a detectivity of 6.8 × 1010 Jones and can sense the four Stokes parameters of incident light within a wide range of wavelength from 565?800 nm with reasonable average errors. We believe our study provides an alternative strategy to develop high performance broadband on-chip full-Stokes polarimeters.
Introduction
Full-Stokes polarimeters have various potential applications in the fields of image processing, biological diagnosis, military detection, and optical communication[
Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have drawn vast attention because of their unique optoelectronic properties such as tunable bandgaps, high carrier mobility and good flexibility[
Here, we have successfully presented a broadband full-Stokes polarimeter by using a single ReS2 nanobelt. The anisotropic structure of the ReS2 introduces the in-plane optical anisotropy for LP light detection while the Schottky contacts formed by the ReS2−Au could break the symmetry, introducing circularly photogalvanic effect (CPGE) that allows to sense CP light. Our device delivers a photoresponsivity of 181 A/W and a detectivity of 6.8 × 1010 Jones, and can sense the four Stokes parameters from 565 to 800 nm with reasonable average errors. We believe our research can provide a simple way to fabricate on-chip full-Stokes polarimeter.
Experimental
The 10 nm Cr/50 nm Au electrodes on SiO2 (300 nm)/Si wafer with 10 μm long channel were fabricated by photolithography with subsequent thermal evaporation and lift-off procedure. ReS2 nanobelt was transferred onto electrodes using a dry transfer method after being exfoliated on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp using scotch tape. Ultimately, the device was annealed under Ar gas environment at 300 °C for 1 h to improve the electrical contact.
Optical microscope (OM) images were obtained using an Olympus BX53 microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Tescan Vega3) was used to take SEM image. Photoconductivity was measured using home-built photoconductivity measurement system in ambient condition. A halogen lamp dispersed by a monochromator (Horiba JY iHR320) was served as the light source. The diameter of the incident light is about 1 cm. A polarizer, a half-wave plate and a quarter-wave plate combined together to tune the polarization states of light for polarization resolved photodetection measurement. The photocurrent signal was acquired by combining of a low-noise amplifier (Stanford SR570), a lock-in amplifier (Stanford SR830), a Model SR770 FFT analyzer and a digital oscilloscope (Tektronix MDO3032). The detailed information and measurement procedure can be found in our previous paper[
Results and discussions
The crystal structure of ReS2 is schematically presented in
Figure 1.(Color online) (a) The schematic illustration of ReS2 crystal structure. (b) OM image of the as-fabricated device with the scale bar of 50 μm. (c) AFM image of the ReS2 nanobelt. Inset: the height profile along the blue line. The scale bar is 1 μm. (d) SEM image of ReS2 nanobelt. The scale bar is 1 μm. (e) The schematics of the device configuration and measurement setup. (f) The current−voltage curves of the ReS2 nanobelt device under dark condition and under 7.8 μW/cm2 illumination with a wavelength of 665 nm. The polarization direction is 0 degree, which is along b-axis of nanobelt marked by the white arrow in (b). The inset shows the local enlarged curves.
In order to further investigate the optoelectronic properties of the ReS2 nanobelt, we have carried out the photoconductivity measurement of our ReS2 nanobelt photodetector. The device configuration and measurement setup are schematically presented in
Responsivity (the ratio of the photocurrent generated under illumination to the incident light power on the device) is a critical parameter to justify the performance of a photodetector. Fig. S1(a) displays the photocurrent spectrum of the ReS2 device under a bias of 2, 1.5, 1 and 0.5 V and
Figure 2.(Color online) (a) Spectral response of our device at different biases. (b) Time-dependent photocurrent response at different biases illuminated by a 7.8 μW/cm2, 665 nm light. (c) Light power density dependent photocurrent and responsivity at 0.5 V bias. (d) Photoresponse versus modulation frequency of the device. (e) Noise power density spectrum of the device. (f) Estimated detectivity (D*) spectrum at 0.5 V bias.
The 3 dB bandwidth of our device can be obtained via scanning the photocurrent versus the modulation frequencies, which was calculated to be about 16 Hz at 0.5 V bias (
In order to measure the Stokes parameters, it requires the photodetector to distinguish LP and CP of light simultaneously. In general, ReS2 can distinguish LP light due to its anisotropic structure and the ability of LP detection of our ReS2 device is displayed in
Figure 3.(Color online) (a) The polar plot of the photocurrent under 0.5 V bias versus the polarization angle. The incident light power is 7.8 μW/cm2. (b) The photocurrent under 0.5 V bias versus the quarter-wave plate angle (black curves). The extracted CPGE (red curves) show the current components under CP light illumination. (c) and (d) Measured photocurrent under incident light with different polarization states when the rotation angles of the device are 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, and 180°. The incident light is tuned at 665 nm with a power density of 7.8 μW/cm2. (e) The average measurement errors of our device.
In addition to the intrinsic capability of LP detection arising from the anisotropic optical properties of ReS2, we can introduce the CP detection capability to our device by establishing Schottky barriers that could break the symmetry, similar to the case in Si[
where C is the amplitude of the CPGE current, L1 and L2 are related to the linearly-polarization-dependent photocurrent contributed from linear photogalvanic effect (LPGE) and/or linear photon drag effect (LPDE) while A is the background current which is polarization-independent. It is obvious that the photocurrent is significantly different between the right-handed (Ir = 58.9 pA) and the left-handed (Il = 53.6 pA) circularly polarized illumination. The extracted CPGE (red curve) is current component contributed from CP light illumination, which is shown in the lower part of
Now that we have demonstrated both the linear- and circular-polarization-dependent photoresponse of our ReS2 nanobelt device (
We finally used polarized light with known Stokes vector
We have also examined the detection performance of our device when the incident light is at different wavelengths and at different intensities.
Figure 4.(Color online) The average measurement errors of the Stokes parameters, S1, S2, and S3 based on our ReS2 nanobelt full-Stokes polarimeter under irradiation with different wavelength (a) and light power density (b).
Conclusion
To sum up, a high-performance broadband ReS2 nanobelt full-Stokes polarimeter has been achieved. The ReS2 nanobelt device delivers a maximum responsivity of 181 A/W and a detectivity of 6.8 × 1010 Jones. ReS2 nanobelt photodetector exhibits a large polarization sensitive photoresponse evidenced via a linear dichroic ratio of 1.80 at 665 nm. Due to the different response to both LP and CP light, our device would be able to sense the full-Stokes parameters of light in a wide range of wavelength from 565 to 800 nm and the minimum errors are 7.3%, 8.9%, and 15.6% at a 665 nm light illumination respectively. We believe our finding provides a simple way to achieve full-Stokes polarimeter with a high-performance.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary materials to this article can be found online at
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Tinghao Lin, Wendian Yao, Zeyi Liu, Haizhen Wang, Dehui Li, and Xinliang Zhang. Broadband full-stokes polarimeter based on ReS2 nanobelts[J]. Journal of Semiconductors, 2025, 46(3): 032702
Category: Research Articles
Received: Jul. 23, 2024
Accepted: --
Published Online: Apr. 27, 2025
The Author Email: Dehui Li (DHLi), and Xinliang Zhang (XLZhang)