Subwavelength pixelated CMOS color sensors based on anti-Hermitian metasurface

• Published in: Nature communications 2020-08, Vol.11 (1), p.3916-3916, Article 3916
• Main Authors: Smalley, Joseph S. T., Ren, Xuexin, Lee, Jeong Yub, Ko, Woong, Joo, Won-Jae, Park, Hongkyu, Yang, Sui, Wang, Yuan, Lee, Chang Seung, Choo, Hyuck, Hwang, Sungwoo, Zhang, Xiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 140/125; 142/126; 639/624/1075/401; 639/624/1107/510; 639/624/400/1103; Bandwidths; CMOS; Color; Crosstalk; Filters; Humanities and Social Sciences; Incident light; Metasurfaces; multidisciplinary; Optoelectronics; Performance enhancement; Photodiodes; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Pixels; Quantum efficiency; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensors; Wavelength
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17743-y

The demand for essential pixel components with ever-decreasing size and enhanced performance is central to current optoelectronic applications, including imaging, sensing, photovoltaics and communications. The size of the pixels, however, are severely limited by the fundamental constraints of lightwave diffraction. Current development using transmissive filters and planar absorbing layers can shrink the pixel size, yet there are two major issues, optical and electrical crosstalk, that need to be addressed when the pixel dimension approaches wavelength scale. All these fundamental constraints preclude the continual reduction of pixel dimensions and enhanced performance. Here we demonstrate subwavelength scale color pixels in a CMOS compatible platform based on anti-Hermitian metasurfaces. In stark contrast to conventional pixels, spectral filtering is achieved through structural color rather than transmissive filters leading to simultaneously high color purity and quantum efficiency. As a result, this subwavelength anti-Hermitian metasurface sensor, over 28,000 pixels, is able to sort three colors over a 100 nm bandwidth in the visible regime, independently of the polarization of normally-incident light. Furthermore, the quantum yield approaches that of commercial silicon photodiodes, with a responsivity exceeding 0.25 A/W for each channel. Our demonstration opens a new door to sub-wavelength pixelated CMOS sensors and promises future high-performance optoelectronic systems. Pixel size in imaging and displays is limited by fundamental constraints that compromise performance at wavelength scales. Here the authors present subwavelength color pixel sensors based on anti-Hermitian metasurfaces relying on structural color for increased performance.