Ultrafast Plasmonic Graphene Photodetector Based on the Channel Photothermoelectric Effect

Abstract

We propose an on-chip CMOS compatible graphene plasmonic photodetector based on the photothermoelectric effect (PTE) that occurs across an entire homogeneous graphene channel. The proposed photodetector incorporates the long-range dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton (LR-DLSPP) waveguide with a metal stripe serving simultaneously as a plasmon supporting metallic material and one of the metal electrodes. Large in-plane component of the transverse magnetic (TM) plasmonic mode can couple efficiently to the graphene causing large temperature increases across an entire graphene channel with a maximum located at the metal stripe edge. As a result, the electronic temperatures exceeding 12000K at input power of only a few tens of μW can be obtained at the telecom wavelength of 1550nm. Even with limitations such as the melting temperature of graphene (T= 4510 K), a responsivity exceeding at least 200 A/W is achievable at telecom wavelength of 1550 nm. It is also shown that under certain operation conditions, the PTE channel photocurrent can be isolated from photovoltaic and p-n junction PTE contributions providing an efficient way for optimizing the overall photodetector performance.

On-Chip Ultrafast Plasmonic Graphene Hot Electron Bolometric Photodetector

“…Here we apply this theory to some recently proposed photodetector structures with the goal of optimizing performances. We start this analysis with our proposed recently bolometric photodetector [34] that is based on the long-range dielectric loaded surface plasmon polariton (LR-DLSPP) waveguide [35,39,43,55,56] with graphene placed at the maximum electric field of the propagating mode ( Fig. 1).…”

Ultrafast, Zero-Bias, Graphene Photodetectors with Polymeric Gate Dielectric on Passive Photonic Waveguides

“…GPDs based on the photothermoelectric (PTE) effect promise large bandwidth, 8 , 22 with the additional advantage of bias-free operation and, thus, zero dark current photovoltage generation. 15 , 23 − 25 The absence of dark current avoids any noise contribution coming from a DC current.…”

A Review on Terahertz Technologies Accelerated by Silicon Photonics

“…As reported in [ 107 , 108 ], graphene-based PDs integrated on Si photonic structures have unique properties and advantages such as high responsivity over a broad spectral range and fast operation. Indeed, a recent study shows that the plasmonic graphene PD on the Si waveguide, which relies on the photo-thermo-electric effect with the additional advantage of bias-free operation, has the potential to achieve the optoelectronic bandwidth up to 500 GHz, as shown in Figure 7 c [ 109 ]. As such, the hybrid SOI/graphene platform opens up new opportunities to improve the performance of PDs that are designed to operate at THz frequencies.…”

“…( c ) Schematic of the graphene photodetector with a 500 GHz bandwidth. Reprinted with permission from [ 109 ]. Copyright, American Chemical Society, 2020.…”