Ballistic photodetectors at room temperature from superatomic polarons

IRG2 has pushed the boundaries of energy transport  in superatomic materials, making major strides in controlling phonon, electron, and exciton interactions. The team published a breakthrough report in Science 2023 demonstrating the emergence of acoustic exciton-polarons in the van der Waals superatomic semiconductor Re₆Se₈Cl₂ (Fig. 1a,b)—quasiparticles that enable ultrafast, phonon-shielded transport, surpassing silicon over nanoseconds. The team also uncovered coherent superradiant transport in 1D superatomic crystals.

 The IRG2 team recently extended these discoveries to ultra-efficient photocurrent devices (Fig. 1c-e). Comparison against state-of-the-art semiconductors (Fig. 1d,e) confirm that Re₆Se₈Cl₂ exhibits record photocurrent efficiencies and ballistic mean free paths, occupying a truly unique material phase space (Fig. 1d). Fabrication of ring-shaped photodetectors (Fig. 1c) enable nearly dissipationlessextraction of photocurrent, towards room-temperature photodetectors attaining theoretical maximum quantum efficiencies. A manuscript detailing the realization of room-temperature ballistic photocurrents is nearing submission.