Near-Infrared CPL-Active Semiconductor Helices with Tunable Twist Counts

Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL)-active materials have recently gained increasing interest due to their potential applications in 3D displays, optoelectronic devices, optical sensors, and optical information storage. Circularly polarized light, generated by passing light through a linear polarizer and quarter-wave plate, is an essential component of various optical techniques and devices. CPL in the near-infrared (NIR) has been found to have advantages over visible light for the areas of bioimaging and telecommunications, resulting from the low absorption of NIR light in biological samples allowing for high-quality imaging with minimal sample damage and low attenuation of NIR light in optical fibers which is ideal for long-distance communication. Few cases of NIR-CPL active materials along with limited characterization equipment for CPL detection in the NIR has however made the expansion of this material library challenging. This work seeks to address these challenges using mercury-exchanged cadmium telluride (CdTe) mesoscale helices that display NIR-CPL activity.