Characterizing Polarizers with Direct Electrical Readouts

The polarization of light is recognized as a key physical quantity in describing light-matter interactions. Polarizers are fabricated to selectively respond to light beams with different polarizations. In practice, the operations of a polarization measuring setup require bulky and expensive terminal photodetectors, e.g., a spectrophotometer, to measure the spectral responses associated with different polarizations. To get rid of the unfavorable reliance on conventional photodetectors, polarizers having a Cu-ZnO junction for efficient hot-electron extraction have been designed to give rise to direct electrical readouts. Detailed photoelectric studies reveal that the designed device excites guided-mode resonances with which the device exhibits polarization-dependent energy depositions in absorbable Cu, leading to distinct electrical responses between transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarizations. The electrical extinction ratio increases from 2.7 to 4.4 when the resonance wavelength increases from 767 nm to 869 nm.