Enhanced Photocurrent Efficiency of a Carbon Nanotube Electromagnetically Coupled to a Photonic Structure

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how a specially designed GaAs photonic structure can significantly enhance the photocurrent efficiency of a carbon nanotube p-n junction by increasing infrared light intensity at the nanoscale.

Contribution

It introduces a method to improve nanotube photocurrent efficiency using a modified photonic structure to concentrate infrared light, supported by finite-difference time-domain calculations.

Findings

Significant electric field enhancement in nanotube region.

Potential for improved energy conversion efficiency.

Coupling large-scale infrared sources with nanotubes effectively.

Abstract

We present photocurrent power-enhancement calculations of a carbon nanotube p-n junction electromagnetically coupled to a highly-efficient photonic structure. Particular attention is paid to a GaAs photonic structure specifically modified to increase the intensity of infrared light onto the nanotube region for effective energy conversion. Using finite-difference time-domain calculations, we compute a significant increase in electric field intensity in the nanotube region which enables an estimation of power efficiency. These results demonstrate the potential of using a photonic structure to couple large-scale infrared sources with carbon nanotubes while still retaining all the unique optoelectronic properties found at the nanoscale.