Circularly polarized light detection using chiral hybrid perovskite

Circularly polarized light (CPL) detection is required in various fields such as drug screening, security surveillance and quantum optics. Conventionally, CPL photodetector needs the installation of optical elements, imposing difficulties for integrated and flexible devices. The established CPL detectors without optical elements rely on chiral organic semiconductor and metal metamaterials, but they suffer from extremely low responsivity. Organic-inorganic hybrid materials combine CPL-sensitive absorption induced by chiral organics and efficient charge transport of inorganic frameworks, providing an option for direct CPL detection. Here we report the CPL detector using chiral organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, and obtain a device with responsivity of 797 mA W-1, detectivity of 7.1 × 1011 Jones, 3-dB frequency of 150 Hz and one-month stability, a competitive combined feature for circularly polarized light detection. Thanks to the solution processing, we further demonstrate flexible devices on polyethylene terephthalate substrate with comparable performance. Optics-free circularly-polarized light detection has suffered from extremely low responsivity. Here Chen et al. demonstrate chiral organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite based detectors to distinguish circularly-polarized light with high responsivity of 797 mA/W.