The fabrication of different perovskite materials with superior properties into lateral heterostructures can greatly improve device performance and polarization sensitivity. However, the sensitivity of perovskites to solvents and environmental factors makes the fabrication of lateral heterojunctions difficult. Here, we realize high-quality perovskite microwire crystal heterojunction arrays using regioselective ion exchange. Photodetectors with responsivity and detectivity up to 748AW-1 and 8.2×1012 Jones are fabricated. The photodetector exhibits responsivity as high as 13.5AW-1 at 0 V bias. In addition, the device exhibits ultra-high polarization sensitivity with a dichroic ratio of 5.6, and 81% of its performance was maintained after 144 days of exposure to air.

In this work, a Si/MoS2 heterojunction photodetector enhanced by hot electron injection through Fano resonance is developed. By preparing Au oligomers using capillary-assisted particle assembly (CAPA) on the silicon substrate with a nanohole array and covering few-layer MoS2 with Au electrodes on top of the oligomer structures, the Fano resonance couples with a Si/MoS2 heterojunction. With on-resonance excitation, Fano resonance generated many hot electrons on the surface of oligomers, and the hot electrons were injected into MoS2, providing an increased current in the photodetector under a bias voltage. The photodetectors exhibited a broadband photoresponse ranging from 450 to 1064 nm, and a large responsivity up to 52 A/W at a wavelength of 785 nm under a bias voltage of 3 V. The demonstrated Fano resonance-enhanced Si/MoS2 heterojunction photodetector provides a strategy to improve the photoresponsivity of two-dimensional materials-based photodetectors for optoelectronic applications in the field of visible and near-infrared detection.

Superconducting nanowires enable the operation of outstanding single-photon detectors, which are required particularly for quantum information and weak-light measurement applications. However, the trade-off between detection speed and efficiency, which is related to the filling factors of superconducting nanowires, is still a challenge. Here, we propose a fast, efficient single-photon detector fabricated by integrating ultralow-filling-factor meandered superconducting nanowires atop a photonic crystal (PhC) resonator. This unique structure enables a fast photon response due to the low kinetic inductance of the short nanowires and ensures efficient photon absorption due to the resonant effect of the PhC structure. The proposed detector has a filling factor of only ∼12% while maintaining a high maximum absorption in our simulation of 90%. The fabricated device exhibits a maximum system detection efficiency of 60%, a maximum count rate of ∼80MHz, and a recovery time of only ∼12ns, which is three times faster than that of the conventional meandered structure at the same sensing diameter (18 μm). This work helps advance the movement toward high-efficiency, high-speed single-photon detectors and promotes their future application in quantum communication and imaging.

Top-illuminated structure facilitates the integration of organic photodetectors (OPDs) into high-resolution flexible wearable light detection systems by allowing the OPDs to be deposited on the bottom readout circuit. However, constructing this structure poses a challenge as it demands metallic electrodes with both high optical transparency and high electrical conductivity. But to achieve practical sheet resistances, most semitransparent metallic electrodes tend to reflect a large portion of incident light instead of allowing it to be absorbed by the photoactive layer of the OPDs. This, in turn, results in reduced photocurrent generation. To address this issue, a semiconducting germanium (Ge) film is introduced into a sliver (Ag) film, effectively reducing its reflectivity by lessening scattering. The Ge film also changes how the Ag film grows, further reducing its absorption by lowering the critical thickness needed for forming a continuous film. This approach yields a 10 nm metallic electrode with a transmittance of 70%, a reflectivity of 12%, and a sheet resistance of 35.5 Ω/□. Using this metallic electrode, flexible OPDs exhibit a high photo-to-dark current ratio of 2.9×104 and improved mechanical properties. This finding highlights the benefits of the top-illuminated structure, which effectively reduces losses caused by waveguided modes of the incident light.

The fast development of the brain-inspired neuromorphic computing system has ignited an urgent demand for artificial synapses with low power consumption. In this work, it is the first time a light-stimulated low-power synaptic device based on a single GaN nanowire has been demonstrated successfully. In such an artificial synaptic device, the incident light, the electrodes, and the light-generated carriers play the roles of action potential, presynaptic/postsynaptic membrane, and neurotransmitter in a biological synapse, respectively. Compared to those of other synaptic devices based on GaN materials, the energy consumption of the single-GaN-nanowire synaptic device can be reduced by more than 92%, reaching only 2.72×10-12J. It is proposed that the oxygen element can contribute to the synaptic characteristics by taking the place of the nitrogen site. Moreover, it is found that the dynamic “learning-forgetting” performance of the artificial synapse can resemble the behavior of the human brain, where less time is required to relearn the missing information previously memorized and the memories can be strengthened after relearning. Based on the experimental conductance for long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD), the simulated network can achieve a high recognition rate up to 90% after only three training epochs. Such few training times can reduce the energy consumption in the supervised learning processes substantially. Therefore, this work paves an effective way for developing single-nanowire-based synapses in the fields of artificial intelligence systems and neuromorphic computing technology requiring low-power consumption.

Micro-nano optomechanical accelerometers are widely used in automobile, aerospace, and other industrial applications. Here, we fabricate mechanical sensing components based on an electrically pumped GaN light-emitting diode (LED) with a beam structure. The relationship between the blueshift of the electroluminescence (EL) spectra and the deformation of the GaN beam structure based on the quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE) of the InGaN quantum well (QW) structure is studied by introducing an extra mass block. Under the equivalent acceleration condition, in addition to the elastic deformation of GaN-LED, a direct relationship exists between the LED’s spectral shift and the acceleration’s magnitude. The extra mass block (gravitational force: 7.55×10-11N) induced blueshift of the EL spectra is obtained and shows driven current dependency. A polymer sphere (PS; gravitational force: 3.427×10-12N) is placed at the center of the beam GaN-LED, and a blueshift of 0.061 nm is observed in the EL spectrum under the injection current of 0.5 mA. The maximum sensitivity of the acceleration is measured to be 0.02m/s2, and the maximum measurable acceleration is calculated to be 1.8×106m/s2. It indicates the simultaneous realization of high sensitivity and a broad acceleration measurement range. This work is significant for several applications, including light force measurement and inertial navigation systems with high integration ability.

Low-intensity light detection necessitates high-responsivity photodetectors. To achieve this, we report In0.53Ga0.47As/InAs/In0.53Ga0.47As quantum well (InAs QW) photo-field-effect-transistors (photo-FETs) integrated on a Si substrate using direct wafer bonding. Structure of the InAs QW channel was carefully designed to achieve higher effective mobility and a narrower bandgap compared with a bulk In0.53Ga0.47As, while suppressing the generation of defects due to lattice relaxations. High-performance 2.6 nm InAs QW photo-FETs were successfully demonstrated with a high on/off ratio of 105 and a high effective mobility of 2370cm2/(V·s). The outstanding transport characteristics in the InAs QW channel result in an optical responsivity 1.8 times greater than InGaAs photo-FETs and the fast rising/falling times. Further, we experimentally confirmed that the InAs QW photo-FET can detect light in the short-wavelength infrared (SWIR; 1.0–2.5 μm) near 2 μm thanks to bandgap engineering through InAs QW structures. Our result suggests that the InAs QW photo-FET is promising for high-responsivity and extended-range SWIR photodetector applications.

Heterojunction field-effect phototransistors using two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) for carrier transport have great potential in photodetection owing to its large internal gain. A vital factor in this device architecture is the depletion and recovery of the 2DEG under darkness and illumination. This is usually achieved by adding an external gate, which not only increases the complexity of the fabrication and the electrical connection but also has difficulty ensuring low dark current (Idark). Herein, a quasi-pseudomorphic AlGaN heterostructure is proposed to realize the self-depletion and photorecovery of the 2DEG, in which both the barrier and the channel layers are compressively strained, making the piezoelectric and spontaneous polarization reverse, thus depleting the 2DEG and tilting the entire barrier and channel band to form two built-in photogates. The fabricated solar-blind phototransistors exhibit a very low Idark below 7.1×10-10mA/mm, a superhigh responsivity (R) of 2.9×109A/W, a record high detectivity (D*) of 4.5×1021 Jones, and an ultrafast response speed at the nanosecond level. The high performance is attributed to the efficient depletion and recovery of the full 2DEG channel by the two photogates, enabling direct detection of the sub-fW signal. This work provides a simple, effective, and easily integrated architecture for carrier control and supersensitive photodetection based on polarization semiconductors.

Photoelectric logic gates (PELGs) are the key component in integrated electronics due to their abilities of signal conversion and logic operations. However, traditional PELGs with fixed architectures can realize only very limited logic functions with relatively low on–off ratios. We present a self-driving polarized photodetector driven by the Dember effect, which yields ambipolar photocurrents through photonic modulation by a nested grating. The ambipolar response is realized by exciting the whispering-gallery mode and localized surface plasmon resonances, which leads to reverse spatial carrier generation and therefore the contrary photocurrent assisted by the Dember effect. We further design a full-functional PELG, which enables all five basic logic functions (“AND”, “OR”, “NOT”, “NAND”, and “NOR”) simultaneously in a single device by using one source and one photodetector only. Such an all-in-one PELG exhibits a strong robustness against structure size, incident wavelength, light power, and half-wave plate modulation, paving a way to the realization of ultracompact high-performance PELGs.