TAILOR2D

Infrared (IR) detectors, covering wavelengths from near to long (1-10 µm), are widely used in applications such as night vision equipment, hyperspectral imaging, tracking, spectroscopy, healthcare, meteorology, and climatology. However, most advancements in this field have predominantly focused on devices operating in the short-wavelength IR (SWIR) range (1-3 µm), driven by the maturity and commercial availability of these components, thanks to developments of terrestrial telecom. Despite this, SWIR performance degrades significantly in foggy or severe weather conditions, hindering transmission. This challenge has led to increasing interest in exploring the mid-wavelength IR (MWIR) band (3–5 µm) and long wevelength (LWIR)(8-14 µm), which aligns with an atmospheric window where free-space optical transmission remains optimal, even in low-visibility environments such as fog, rain, and at night. In the TAILOR2D project, we propose to develop a new family of room temperature IR sensors based on a CMOS-compatible 2D TMD semiconductors platform for which a versatile association in engineered heterostructures could allow to modulate at will the resulting bandgap. Departing from the traditional epitaxy of III-V and II-VI semiconductors and its associated epitaxy challenges, we aim to introduce and develop van der Waals epitaxy-free, highly customizable, rapid-growth methods for large-scale 2D semiconductor heterostructures tailored for IR applications. Indeed, by developing a new Raman tool to monitor in-situ the growth of 2D semiconductors and rationally combining TMD materials, TAILOR2D aims to unlock the potential of tailored 2D semiconductor-based IR detectors with bandgaps that span from near IR to MWIR. As a proof of concept, the project will target the fabrication of IR devices and assess their performance in a testbed setup, focusing on the transparency window wavelength range for ground-space communication applications, from the reference SWIR, to the MWIR/LWIR wavelength.