2018/11/14 by Zhizhen Ma, Ma, Zhizhen, Kazuya Kikunage +17 · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1812.00894
openalex publication_date 2018/11/14 · openalex created_date 2018/12/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Graphene has extraordinary electro-optic properties and is therefore a promising candidate for monolithic photonic devices such as photodetectors. However, the integration of this atom-thin layer material with bulky photonic components usually results in a weak light-graphene interaction leading to large device lengths limiting electro-optic performance. In contrast, here we demonstrate a plasmonic slot graphene photodetector on silicon-on-insulator platform with high-responsivity given the 5 um-short device length. We observe that the maximum photocurrent, and hence the highest responsivity, scales inversely with the slot gap width. Using a dual-lithography step, we realize 15 nm narrow slots that show a 15-times higher responsivity per unit device-length compared to photonic graphene photodetectors. Furthermore, we reveal that the back-gated electrostatics is overshadowed by channel-doping contributions induced by the contacts of this ultra-short channel graphene photodetector. This leads to quasi charge neutrality, which explains both the previously-unseen offset between the maximum photovoltaic-based photocurrent relative to graphenes Dirac point and the observed non-ambipolar transport. Such micrometer compact and absorption-efficient photodetectors allow for short-carrier pathways in next-generation photonic components, while being an ideal testbed to study short-channel carrier physics in graphene optoelectronics.