Strong Plasmonic Enhancement of Photovoltage in Graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that integrating plasmonic nanostructures with graphene significantly enhances photodetector responsivity, achieving up to 20-fold improvement, with added wavelength and polarization selectivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of using plasmonic nanostructures to boost graphene photodetector efficiency and selectivity, surpassing previous performance levels.

Findings

Photodetector efficiency increased by up to 20 times.

Wavelength and polarization selectivity achieved through nanostructure design.

Enhanced field concentration at the p-n junction improves responsivity.

Abstract

Amongst the wide spectrum of potential applications of graphene, ranging from transistors and chemical-sensors to nanoelectromechanical devices and composites, the field of photonics and optoelectronics is believed to be one of the most promising. Indeed, graphene's suitability for high-speed photodetection was demonstrated in an optical communication link operating at 10 Gbit/s\cite. However, the low responsivity of graphene-based photodetectors compared to traditional III-V based ones is a potential drawback. Here we show that, by combining graphene with plasmonic nanostructures, the efficiency of graphene-based photodectors can be increased by up to 20 times, due to field concentration in the area of a p-n junction. Additionally, wavelength and polarization selectivity can be achieved employing nanostructures of different geometries.