October 27, 2023
Keio University
Rice University
A research group led by Professor Hideyuki Maki of the Department of Applied Physics and Physico-Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, along with Shinichiro Matano, a second-year student in the Doctoral Programs at the university's Graduate School of Science and Technology, and Professor Junichiro Kono of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in the US, has successfully developed a polarized thermal light source that can be rapidly modulated (switched on and off). The team used a highly-aligned carbon nanotube film, a dense and highly oriented stack of the one-dimensional nanomaterial carbon nanotubes.
Polarized light is important in fields such as material analysis, bio-analysis, and drug discovery, and is widely used in everything from basic research to industry. However, applications for high-sensitivity and time-dependent measurements have faced challenges. The use of macro-sized polarizers and optical choppers makes miniaturization and integration difficult. Furthermore, despite the need for high-speed modulation, the maximum achievable speed has been slow, only up to a few kilohertz.
The team has now developed a light-emitting device using a dense, highly-aligned carbon nanotube film with close-packed carbon nanotubes, creating a thermal light source that emits polarized light at high speed over a broad infrared wavelength range. As this source is a micro-polarized thermal light source microfabricated on a chip, it is expected to contribute to the advancement of analysis and sensing technologies, for which there is growing demand in various applications.
The results of this research were published in the online edition of Nano Letters by the American Chemical Society (ACS) on October 26, 2023.
Please see below for the full press release.