Plasmonically enhanced graphene photodetector featuring 100 GBd, high-responsivity and compact size

TL;DR

This paper presents a plasmonically enhanced graphene photodetector that achieves high responsivity and ultra-fast response, enabling 100 Gbit/s data reception, demonstrating graphene's potential for high-speed optical communications.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel plasmonic waveguide-integrated graphene photodetector with significantly improved responsivity and bandwidth, enabling record-high data rates for graphene-based photodetectors.

Findings

Achieved 0.5 A/W external responsivity.

Demonstrated photoresponse beyond 110 GHz.

Enabled 100 Gbit/s data reception with graphene device.

Abstract

Graphene has shown great potentials for high-speed photodetection. Yet, the responsivities of graphene-based high-speed photodetectors are commonly limited by the weak effective absorption of atomically thin graphene. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a plasmonically enhanced waveguide-integrated graphene photodetector. The device which combines a 6 micron long layer of graphene with field-enhancing nano-sized metallic structures, demonstrates a high external responsivity of 0.5 A/W and a fast photoresponse way beyond 110 GHz. The high efficiency and fast response of the device enables for the first time 100 Gbit/s PAM-2 and 100 Gbit/s PAM-4 data reception with a graphene based device. The results show the potential of graphene as a new technology for highest-speed communication applications.