Black-Phosphorus Terahertz Photodetectors

TL;DR

This paper presents the first room-temperature black phosphorus-based terahertz photodetector, demonstrating comparable performance to commercial devices by leveraging the material's direct band gap and engineered antennas.

Contribution

It introduces the first phosphorus-based active THz device using few-layer phosphorene in a FET configuration, enabling efficient room-temperature detection.

Findings

Achieved detection performance comparable to commercial THz detectors.

Demonstrated effective light harvesting with engineered antennas.

First technological implementation of a phosphorus-based THz detector.

Abstract

The discovery of graphene and the related fascinating capabilities have triggered an unprecedented interest in inorganic two-dimensional (2D) materials. Despite the impressive impact in a variety of photonic applications, the absence of energy gap has hampered its broader applicability in many optoelectronic devices. The recent advance of novel 2D materials, such as transition-metal dichalcogenides or atomically thin elemental materials, (e.g. silicene, germanene and phosphorene) promises a revolutionary step-change. Here we devise the first room-temperature Terahertz (THz) frequency detector exploiting few-layer phosphorene, e.g., a 10 nm thick flake of exfoliated crystalline black phosphorus (BP), as active channel of a field-effect transistor (FET). By exploiting the direct band gap of BP to fully switch between insulating and conducting states and by engineering proper antennas for efficient light harvesting, we reach detection performance comparable with commercial detection technologies, providing the first technological demonstration of a phosphorus-based active THz device.