Large responsivity of graphene radiation detectors with thermoelectric readout

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that graphene radiation detectors with thermoelectric readout can achieve high responsivity at room temperature, even with modest mobility, by optimizing device parameters like residual charge density and split-gate spacing.

Contribution

It provides a simple estimation framework showing the potential of thermoelectric graphene detectors with modest mobility for high responsivity applications.

Findings

Responsivity can reach 10^3 - 10^4 V/W at room temperature.

Optimal device performance depends on balancing responsivity and total resistance.

Key parameters like residual charge density significantly influence detector effectiveness.

Abstract

Simple estimations show that the thermoelectric readout in graphene radiation detectors can be extremely effective even for graphene with modest charge-carrier mobility ~1000 cm^2/(Vs). The detector responsivity depends mostly on the residual charge-carrier density and split-gate spacing and can reach competitive values of ~10^3 - 10^4 V/W at room temperature. The optimum characteristics depend on a trade-off between the responsivity and the total device resistance. Finding out the key parameters and their roles allows for simple detectors and their arrays, with high responsivity and sufficiently low resistance matching that of the radiation-receiving antenna structures.