An on-chip programmable valley optoelectronic nanocircuit
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In transition metal dichalcogenides, the valley degree of freedom directly couples valley-polarised excitons, excited by circularly polarised light to valley-dependent chiral photons, enabling ultrafast light-driven valleytronics. However, achieving fully integrated valley optoelectronics, incorporating on-chip in-situ generation, selective routing, and electrical readout of valley-dependent chiral photons, remains an unresolved challenge. We present a valley-driven hybrid optoelectronic nanocircuit that integrates chirality-selective meta-waveguide photodetectors with transition metal dichalcogenides. At room temperature, our purposely designed meta-waveguide device generates near-unity valley-dependent chiral photons in the second harmonic generation from an encapsulated tungsten disulfide monolayer and selectively couples them to unidirectional waveguide modes, achieving an exceptional polarisation selectivity of 0.97. These valley-dependent waveguide modes were subsequently detected by atomically thin few-layer tungsten diselenide photodetectors, exclusively responsive to the above-bandgap upconverted photons, thereby enabling all-on-chip processing of valley-multiplexed images. Our demonstration bridges a critical gap in lightwave valleytronics, paving the way for compact, programmable, and scalable valley information processing and fostering the development of light-based valleytronic quantum technologies.
Date Issued
2026-05-25
Date Acceptance
2026-04-15
Citation
Nature Photonics, 2026
ISSN
1749-4885
Publisher
Nature Research
Journal / Book Title
Nature Photonics
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2026, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. This is the author’s accepted manuscript made available under a CC-BY licence in accordance with Imperial’s Research Publications Open Access policy (www.imperial.ac.uk/oa-policy)
License URL
Publication Status
Published online
Date Publish Online
2026-05-25