National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC

Sandia Corporation

University of Virginia Patent Foundation

Thomas Edwin Beechem, Iii

David W Peters

Stephen Wayne Howell

Isaac Ruiz

David R Wheeler

Paul Davids

David Bruce Burckel

Jon Ihlefeld

Ronen Polsky

Susan M Brozik

Michael Goldflam

Xiaoyin Xiao

Michael B Sinclair

Anna Tauke-Pedretti

Patrick Edward Hopkins

Khalid Mikhiel Hattar

Richard Karl Harrison

Jeffrey B Martin

Luke Yates

Taisuke Ohta

Edward S Piekos

Douglas L Medlin

A monolithically integrated, tunable infrared pixel comprises a combined broadband detector and graphene-enabled tunable metasurface filter that operate as a single solid-state device with no moving parts. Functionally, tunability results from the plasmonic properties of graphene that are acutely dependent upon the carrier concentration within the infrared. Voltage induced changes in graphene's carrier concentration can be leveraged to change the metasurface filter's transmission thereby altering the 'colors' of light reaching the broadband detector and hence its spectral responsivity. The invention enables spectrally agile infrared detection with independent pixel-to-pixel spectral tunability.

Tunable infrared pixels having unpatterned graphene layer and conductive metasurface

A radiation field is detected or imaged using one or more junction devices in which a two-dimensional conductor layer is capacitively coupled to a semiconductor absorber layer. In the junction devices, pixel-level amplification and read-out are accomplished through the photogating of the devices by absorption within the absorber layer while it is in a state of deep depletion. When the two-dimensional conductor is graphene, we refer to a device operating in that manner as a deeply depleted graphene-oxide-semiconductor (DGOS) detector.

Radiation detector using a graphene amplifier layer

An actively tunable optical filter can control the amplitude of reflected infrared light. The filter exploits the dependence of the excitation energy of plasmons in a continuous and unpatterned sheet of graphene, on the Fermi-level, which can be controlled by conventional electrostatic gating. An exemplary filter enables simultaneous modification of two distinct spectral bands whose positions are dictated by the device geometry and graphene plasmon dispersion. Within these bands, the reflected amplitude can be varied by over 15% and resonance positions can be shifted by over 90 cm. Electromagnetic simulations verify that tuning arises through coupling of incident light to graphene plasmons by a nanoantenna grating structure. Importantly, the tunable range is determined by a combination of graphene properties, device structure, and the surrounding dielectrics, which dictate the plasmon dispersion. Thus, the underlying design is applicable across a broad range of infrared frequencies.

Tunable graphene-based infrared reflectance filter having patterned nanoantenna layer and unpatterned graphene layer

Ion implantation can be used to define a thermal dissipation path that allows for better thermal isolation between devices in close proximity on a microelectronics chip, thus providing a means for higher device density combined with better performance.

Ion-implanted thermal barrier

The present invention pertains to the use of mobile coherent interfaces in a ferroelectric material to interact with optical phonons and, ultimately, to affect the material's optical properties. In altering the optical phonon properties, the optical properties of the ferroelectric material in the spectral range near-to the phonon mode frequency can dramatically change. This can result in a facile means to change to the optical response of the ferroelectric material in the infrared.

Tunable infrared reflectance by phonon modulation

A patterned graphene or graphitic body is produced by providing a three-dimensionally patterned carbonaceous body; coating the body with a catalytic metal whereby is formed a coating having an inner surface proximal the body and an outer surface distal the body; and annealing the coated body under time and temperature conditions effective to form a graphene or graphitic layer on the outer surface of the catalytic metal coating.

Patterned structures of graphene and graphitic carbon and methods for their manufacture

The integration of bilayer graphene with an absorption enhancing sub-wavelength antenna provides an infrared photodetector capable of real-time spectral tuning without filters at nanosecond timescales.

Sub-wavelength antenna enhanced bilayer graphene tunable photodetector

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Thomas Edwin Beechem, Iii