Photodetection over a broad spectral range is crucial for optoelectronic applications such as sensing, imaging, and communication. Herein, a high‐performance ultra‐broadband photodetector based on PdSe2 with unique pentagonal atomic structure is reported. The photodetector responds from visible to mid‐infrared range (up to ≈4.05 µm), and operates stably in ambient and at room temperature. It promises improved applications compared to conventional mid‐infrared photodetectors. The highest responsivity and external quantum efficiency achieved are 708 A W−1 and 82 700%, respectively, at the wavelength of 1064 nm. Efficient optical absorption beyond 8 µm is observed, indicating that the photodetection range can extend to longer than 4.05 µm. Owing to the low crystalline symmetry of layered PdSe2, anisotropic properties of the photodetectors are observed. This emerging material shows potential for future infrared optoelectronics and novel devices in which anisotropic properties are desirable.

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Bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE), featuring polarization-dependent uniform photoresponse at zero external bias, holds potential for exceeding the Shockley-Queisser limit in the efficiency of existing opto-electronic devices. However, the implementation of BPVE has been limited to the naturally existing materials with broken inversion symmetry, such as ferroelectrics, which suffer low efficiencies. Here, we propose metasurface-mediated graphene photodetectors with cascaded polarization-sensitive photoresponse under uniform illumination, mimicking an artificial BPVE. With the assistance of non-centrosymmetric metallic nanoantennas, the hot photocarriers in graphene gain a momentum upon their excitation and form a shift current which is nonlocal and directional. Thereafter, we demonstrate zero-bias uncooled mid-infrared photodetectors with three orders higher responsivity than conventional BPVE and a noise equivalent power of 0.12 nW Hz−1/2. Besides, we observe a vectorial photoresponse which allows us to detect the polarization angle of incident light with a single device. Our strategy opens up alternative possibilities for scalable, low-cost, multifunctional infrared photodetectors.

Black phosphorus (BP) offers unique opportunities for mid‐infrared (MIR) waveguide photodetectors due to its narrow direct bandgap and layered lattice structure. Further miniaturization of the photodetector will improve operation speed, signal‐to‐noise ratio, and internal quantum efficiency. However, it is challenging to maintain high responsivities in miniaturized BP waveguide photodetectors because of reduced light–matter interaction lengths. To address this issue, a method utilizing the slow light effect in photonic crystal waveguides (PhCWGs) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A shared‐BP photonic system is proposed and utilized to fairly and precisely characterize the slow light enhancement. Close to the band edge around 3.8 µm, the responsivity is enhanced by more than tenfold in the BP photodetector on a 10 µm long PhCWG as compared with the counterpart on a subwavelength grating waveguide. At a 0.5 V bias, the BP PhCWG photodetector achieves a 11.31 A W−1 responsivity and a 0.012 nW Hz−1/2 noise equivalent power. The trap‐induced photoconductive gain is validated as both the dominant photoresponse mechanism and the major limiting factor of the response speed. The BP slow light waveguide photodetector is envisioned to realize miniaturized high‐performance on‐chip MIR systems for widespread applications including environmental monitoring, industrial process control, and medical diagnostics.

The surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) technique has been focusing on the metallic resonator structures for decades, exploring different approaches to enhance sensitivity. Although the high enhancement is achieved, the dissipative loss and strong heating are the intrinsic drawbacks of metals. Recently, the dielectric platform has emerged as a promising alternative. In this work, we report a guided resonance-based all-dielectric photonic crystal slab as the platform for SEIRA. The guided resonance-induced enhancement in the effective path length and electric field, together with gas enrichment polymer coating, leads to a detection limit of 20 ppm in carbon dioxide (CO2) sensing. This work explores the feasibility to apply low loss all-dielectric structures as a surface enhancement method in the transmission mode.

Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs), typically constructed with metallic nodes and organic linkers, have influenced the development of modular solid materials. Their adjustable molecular structure provides a remarkable variety of MOF‐based solid‐state structures towards diverse applications. However, the low conductivity of traditional MOFs extremely hinders their applications in electronic and electrochemical devices. The emerging conductive MOFs, generally possessing two‐dimensional layered structures, are endowed with both the structural merits of common MOFs and exceptional electronic/ionic conductivities. Besides, the selection and optimization of ligands and metal centers, as well as synthetic methods enormously affects the intrinsic conductivity of conductive MOFs. The distinctive crystal structures and superb conductivity promise their appealing applications in electrochemical energy‐related fields. In the review, we mainly summarize representative crystal features, conducting mechanisms and recent advances in rational design and synthesis of conductive MOFs, along with their versatile applications as electrodes for electrochemical capacitors and rechargeable batteries, and as catalysts towards electrocatalysis. Finally, the involved challenges and future trends/prospects of the conductive MOFs for electrochemical energy‐related applications are further proposed.

Miniaturized infrared spectroscopy is highly desired for widespread applications, including environment monitoring, chemical analysis, and biosensing. Nanoantennas, as a promising approach, feature strong field enhancement and provide opportunities for ultrasensitive molecule detection even in the nanoscale range. However, current efforts for higher sensitivities by nanogaps usually suffer a trade-off between the performance and fabrication cost. Here, novel crooked nanoantennas are designed with a different paradigm based on loss engineering to overcome the above bottleneck. Compared to the commonly used straight nanoantennas, the crooked nanoantennas feature higher sensitivity and a better fabrication tolerance. Molecule signals are increased by 25 times, reaching an experimental enhancement factor of 2.8 × 104. The optimized structure enables a transmissive CO2 sensor with sensitivities up to 0.067% ppm–1. More importantly, such a performance is achieved without sub-100 nm structures, which are common in previous works, enabling compatibility with commercial optical lithography. The mechanism of our design can be explained by the interplay of radiative and absorptive losses of nanoantennas that obeys the coupled-mode theory. Leveraging the advantage of the transmission mode in an optical system, our work paves the way toward cheap, compact, and ultrasensitive infrared spectroscopy.

Mid-infrared absorption spectroscopy plays an important role in molecule identification and quantification for widespread applications. Integrated photonics provides opportunities to perform spectroscopic sensing on-chip for the minimization of device size, cost, and power consumption. The integration of waveguides and photodetectors is an indispensable step toward the realization of these on-chip sensing systems. It is desired to extend the operating wavelengths of these on-chip sensing systems to the long-wave infrared (LWIR) range to utilize more molecular absorption fingerprints. However, the development of LWIR waveguideintegrated photodetectors faces challenges from both waveguide platforms due to the bottom cladding material absorption and photodetection technologies due to the low LWIR photon energy. Here, we demonstrate LWIR waveguide-integrated photodetectors through heterogeneous integration of graphene photodetectors and Si waveguides on CaF 2 substrates. A highyield transfer printing method is developed for flexibly integrating the waveguide and substrate materials to solve the bottom cladding material absorption issue. The fabricated Si-on-CaF 2 waveguides show low losses in the broad LWIR wavelength range of 6.3−7.1 μm. The graphene photodetector achieves a broadband responsivity of ∼8 mA/W in these low-photonenergy LWIR wavelengths under zero-bias operation with the help of waveguide integration and plasmonic enhancement. We further integrate the graphene photodetector with a Si-on-CaF 2 folded waveguide and demonstrate on-chip absorption sensing using toluene as an example. These results reveal the potential of our technology for the realization of chip-scale, low-cost, and low-power-consumption LWIR spectroscopic sensing systems.