Optical Rectification and Thermal Currents in Optical Tunneling Gap Antennas

TL;DR

This paper investigates how laser-induced thermal effects influence the electrical response of nanoscale optical gap antennas, highlighting the importance of thermal contributions in photon-to-electron conversion processes.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of thermo-electric effects in optical rectennas, emphasizing their role alongside optical rectification in the photo-response.

Findings

Thermal effects significantly impact the photo-current in optical gap antennas.

Laser-induced heating contributes to the overall electrical signal.

Thermo-electric effects must be considered for accurate device modeling.

Abstract

Electrically-contacted optical gap antennas are nanoscale interface devices enabling the transduction between photons and electrons. This new generation of devices captures visible to near infrared electromagnetic radiation and converts the incident energy in a direct-current (DC) electrical signal. The nanoscale rectenna is usually constituted of metal elements (e.g. gold). Light absorption by the metal contacts may lead to additional thermal effects which need to be taken into account to understand the complete photo- response of the device. The purpose of this communication is to discuss the contribution of laser-induced thermo-electric effects in the photo-assisted electronic transport.