An exciton-polariton bolometer for terahertz radiation detection

• Main Authors: Paschos, G. G., Hatzopoulos, Z., Kavokin, A. V., Savvidis, P. G., Deligeorgis, G., Liew, Timothy Chi Hin
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Radiation Detection; Exciton-polariton Bolometer
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/86806; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45331
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We experimentally investigate the feasibility of a bolometric device based on exciton-polaritons. Initial measurements presented in this work show that heating – via thermal expansion and bandgap renormalization – modifies the exciton-polariton propagation wavevector making exciton-polaritons propagation remarkably sensitive to thermal variations. By theoretical simulations we predict that using a single layer graphene absorbing layer, a THz bolometric sensor can be realized by a simple exciton-polariton ring interferometer device. The predicted sensitivity is comparable to presently existing THz bolometric devices with the convenience of being a device that inherently produces an optical signal output.