Nonlocal, Flat-Band Meta-Optics for Monolithic, High-Efficiency, Compact Photodetectors

Miniaturized photodetectors are becoming increasingly sought-after components for next-generation technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, integrated wearable devices, or gadgets embedded on the Internet of Things. A major challenge, however, lies in shrinking the device footprint while maintaining high efficiency. This conundrum can be solved by realizing a nontrivial relation between the energy and momentum of photons, such as dispersion-free devices, known as flat bands. Here, we leverage flat-band meta-optics to simultaneously achieve critical absorption over a wide range of incidence angles. For a monolithic silicon meta-optical photodiode, we achieved an ∼10-fold enhancement in the photon-to-electron conversion efficiency. Such enhancement over a large angular range of ∼36° allows incoming light to be collected via a large-aperture lens and focused on a compact photodiode, potentially enabling high-speed and low-light operation. Our research unveils new possibilities for creating compact and efficient optoelectronic devices with far-reaching impact on various applications, including augmented reality and light detection and ranging.