Quantum-dot light-chip micro-spectrometer

Abstract

Micro-spectrometers have great potential in various fields such as medicine, agriculture, and aerospace. In this work, a quantum-dot (QD) light-chip micro-spectrometer is proposed in which QDs emit different wavelengths of light that are combined with a spectral reconstruction (SR) algorithm. The QD array itself can play the roles of both the light source and the wavelength division structure. The spectra of samples can be obtained by using this simple light source with a detector and algorithm, and the spectral resolution reaches 9.7 nm in the wavelength range from 580 nm to 720 nm. The area of the QD light chip is 4 × 7.5 mm2, which is 20 times smaller than the halogen light sources of commercial spectrometers. It does not need a wavelength division structure and greatly reduces the volume of the spectrometer. Such a micro-spectrometer can be used for material identification: in a demonstration, three kinds of transparent samples, real and fake leaves, and real and fake blood were classified with an accuracy of 100%. These results indicate that the spectrometer based on a QD light chip has broad application prospects.