Growing industrial, environmental, and healthcare needs are accelerating the development of next-generation infrared systems with high detectivity, multifunctional sensing, and on-device intelligence. While traditional devices (e.g., HgCdTe, quantum wells) continue to dominate in terms of performance, they face limitations in cooling requirements, cost, and functionality. Recently, considerable advances have been made in materials, structures, and detection systems. As the foundation of IR systems, photodetectors based on traditional materials with band alignment engineering and emerging materials (e.g., two-dimensional materials and quantum dots) show high photodetectivity, low dark current, and room-temperature operation. Meanwhile, on-chip microstructures (e.g., plasmons, metasurfaces, and 3D-assembled architectures) integration enables manipulation of coupling and propagation of electromagnetic fields, which enhances polarization and wavelength-dependent light absorption. These developments empower infrared devices with multidimensional photodetection capabilities and tunable spectral response. Furthermore, advanced technologies like in-sensor computing, miniaturized spectrometers, and on-chip digitization merge sensing, storage, and computing into a single chip. The integration enables monolithic infrared systems with more compact architectures while possessing adaptive perception, data compression, and real-time signal processing capabilities. Finally, a comparative analysis containing material engineering, microstructure design, and integrated architecture is presented to outline the challenges and opportunities toward compact, intelligent, multifunctional infrared detection platforms.
Zhang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.