Plasmonic antenna coupling to hyperbolic phonon-polaritons for sensitive and fast mid-infrared photodetection with graphene
arXiv:2006.00358 · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18544-z
Abstract
Integrating and manipulating the nano-optoelectronic properties of Van der Waals heterostructures can enable unprecedented platforms for photodetection and sensing. The main challenge of infrared photodetectors is to funnel the light into a small nanoscale active area and efficiently convert it into an electrical signal. Here, we overcome all of those challenges in one device, by efficient coupling of a plasmonic antenna to hyperbolic phonon-polaritons in hexagonal-BN to highly concentrate mid-infrared light into a graphene pn-junction. We balance the interplay of the absorption, electrical and thermal conductivity of graphene via the device geometry. This novel approach yields remarkable device performance featuring room temperature high sensitivity (NEP of 82 pW-per-square-root-Hz) and fast rise time of 17 nanoseconds (setup-limited), among others, hence achieving a combination currently not present in the state-of-the-art graphene and commercial mid-infrared detectors. We also develop a multiphysics model that shows excellent quantitative agreement with our experimental results and reveals the different contributions to our photoresponse, thus paving the way for further improvement of these types of photodetectors even beyond mid-infrared range.
References in corpus (8)
- Graphene Plasmonics for Terahertz to Mid-Infrared Applications
- Graphene field effect transistors as room-temperature Terahertz detectors
- Sub-diffractional, volume-confined polaritons in a natural hyperbolic material: hexagonal boron nitride
- Subdiffractional focusing and guiding of polaritonic rays in a natural hyperbolic material
- Fast and Sensitive Terahertz Detection Using an Antenna-Integrated Graphene pn Junction
- HBN-encapsulated, graphene-based room-temperature terahertz receivers with high speed and low noise
- Graphene photodetector integrated on a photonic crystal defect waveguide
- Electrical detection of hyperbolic phonon-polaritons in heterostructures of graphene and boron nitride