Free-standing graphene oxide mid-infrared polarizers

Mid-infrared (MIR) represents a crucial spectral region for applications in spectroscopy, sensing, imaging, security and industry screening, owing to the strong characteristic vibrational transitions of many important molecules. However, the current MIR compatible materials are fragile, hazardous, and costly, which hampers the performance of MIR devices. Here, we developed a versatile transmittance-based Kramers-Kronig method and obtained the optical properties of graphene oxide in the MIR region, unveiling its application potentials as a novel MIR compatible material. As an example, we demonstrated free-standing graphene oxide MIR polarizers with large extinction ratio (∼20 dB) and controllable working wavelength up to 25 μm, by using the low-cost and flexible direct laser writing technique. Our transmittance-based KK method offers a versatile approach to obtain the optical properties of novel atomic-scale low-dimensional materials in the less developed MIR region and opens up opportunities in high performing functional MIR devices.