Nonlinear self-calibrated spectrometer with single GeSe-InSe heterojunction device | Science Advances

Computational spectrometry is an emerging field that uses photodetection in conjunction with numerical algorithms for spectroscopic measurements. Compact single photodetectors made from layered materials are particularly attractive since they eliminate the need for bulky mechanical and optical components used in traditional spectrometers and can easily be engineered as heterostructures to optimize device performance. However, such photodetectors are typically nonlinear devices, which adds complexity to extracting optical spectra from their response. Here, we train an artificial neural network to recover the full nonlinear spectral photoresponse of a single GeSe-InSe p-n heterojunction device. The device has a spectral range of 400 to 1100 nm, a small footprint of ~25 × 25 square micrometers, and a mean reconstruction error of 2 × 10 ⁻⁴ for the power spectrum at 0.35 nanometers. Using our device, we demonstrate a solution to metamerism, an apparent matching of colors with different power spectral distributions, which is a fundamental problem in optical imaging.