Research progress on metasurface-enhanced photodetectors: a review

The rapid development of technology has introduced new requirements for photodetector performance. The fabrication of high-performance multifunctional photodetectors with a broad spectral detection range and high detection accuracy has become an important research goal and development trend in photodetection. Metasurfaces, which are two-dimensional artificial materials with subwavelength-scale structural units, can flexibly regulate the basic characteristics of the light field, such as the amplitude, phase, and polarization. This further optimizes the performance of photodetectors and endows them with new functions, providing an effective and novel approach for developing high-performance, highly integrated multifunctional photodetectors. This paper reviews the latest progress in metasurface-based photodetectors in recent years, focusing on four aspects: light absorption enhancement, spectral response regulation, response speed improvement, polarization sensitivity and high-dimensional photodetectors. The development prospects and existing challenges are also discussed in this paper.