Active Hyperspectral Imaging with Wavelength-Encoded Illumination Using Perovskite Nanocrystals

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) captures both spatial and spectral information in a three-dimensional data cube, enabling detailed material characterization and analysis across scientific and technological domains. Conventional HSI systems often rely on dispersive optics and scanning mechanisms, which increase system complexity and acquisition overhead. In this work, we introduce an active HSI platform based on wavelength-encoded illumination using photoluminescent perovskite nanocrystals. By fully leveraging their composition-dependent emission tunability, high photoluminescence quantum yield, and narrow spectral line widths, these nanocrystals serve not merely as light sources, but as spectral information encoders, directly modulating the illumination field. This spectrally structured illumination enables compressive sampling in the spectral domain, and spectral information is reconstructed using computational algorithms without sacrificing spatial resolution. Unlike conventional filter-based or passive encoding approaches, our strategy offers improved energy efficiency, design flexibility, and robustness. We validate the system’s performance across a range of targets─including photonic structures, pigment-rich ceramics, and visually similar natural and artificial leaves─demonstrating its capacity to recover fine spectral distinctions. This work highlights a new role for perovskite nanocrystals in optical information encoding and establishes a framework for material-system codesign in next-generation hyperspectral imaging.