Development of triboelectric-enabled tunable Fabry-Pérot photonic-crystal-slab filter towards wearable mid-infrared computational spectrometer

Highlights: • A MEMS tunable Fabry-Perot (FP) photonic-crystal-slab filter is fabricated by transfer-printing method. • The computational optical spectrometer is demonstrated for the first time with a single MEMS tunable device. • A textile-TENG is incorporated to tune the resonance of FP filter, forming the sampling bases for computational spectrometer. • The transmission spectra of CO₂ and acetone are reconstructed with their molecular fingerprints identified. Miniaturized optical spectrometers have been realized by exploiting conventional working principles and advanced nanofabrication technology. Especially in the mid-infrared (MIR) range, chip-scale optical spectrometers enable fast and on-site detection of molecular fingerprints for selective chemical sensing in healthcare and environmental monitoring. This miniaturization is also highly desirable for the wearable devices where the tiny functional parts remain on rigid substrates but the electronics are flexible. In the last decade, the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) technology has been proven as an indispensable and enabling technology for wearable self-powered sensors, energy harvesters and voltage sources, etc. Although a few TENG based gas sensors have been demonstrated, each of these sensors can detect a particular gas other than diversified gases. Infrared spectrometer is known as an instrument which can investigate the infrared absorption characteristics of gas molecules. It is the best generic technology to sense multiple gases on the same instrument, or device. In this study, we demonstrate a TENG enabled tunable Fabry-Pérot (FP) photonic-crystal-slab filter aiming for the computational spectrometer in the MIR range. The textile-triboelectric nanogenerator (T-TENG) provides high open-circuit voltage to shift the resonance wavelengths of the electrostatically actuated FP-filter, where this feature provides the sampling bases required for the computational spectrometer. Furthermore, the FP-filter is fabricated by a new transfer-printing method and shows a large wavelength tunability. As a proof of concept, the transmission spectrum of acetone vapor is reconstructed from 5 to 6.5 µm using this TENG enabled FP-filter. The molecular fingerprint of acetone is identified at 5.75 µm. This work paves the way towards the wearable MIR miniaturized optical spectrometer.