High operating temperature plasmonic infrared detectors

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel plasmonic infrared detector architecture based on T2SLs that operates efficiently at high temperatures up to 230 K, surpassing previous performance benchmarks and commercial detectors.

Contribution

The work introduces a high-temperature plasmonic T2SL detector design that achieves high quantum efficiency and detectivity at temperatures accessible with standard thermoelectric cooling.

Findings

Operates at temperatures up to 230 K with dark currents below Rule 07

Achieves 22.8% external quantum efficiency at 9.6 μm

Peak specific detectivity of 2.29x10^9 cm Hz^1/2 W^-1

Abstract

III-V semiconductor type-II superlattices (T2SLs) are a promising material system with the potential to significantly reduce the dark current of, and thus realize high-performance in, infrared photodetectors at elevated temperatures. However, T2SLs have struggled to meet the performance metrics set by the longstanding infrared detector material of choice, HgCdTe. Recently, epitaxial plasmonic detector architectures have demonstrated T2SL detector performance comparable to HgCdTe in the 77 K - 195 K temperature range. Here we demonstrate a high operating temperature plasmonic T2SL detector architecture with high-performance operation at temperatures accessible with two-stage thermoelectric coolers. Specifically, we demonstrate long-wave infrared plasmonic detectors operating at temperatures as high as 230 K while maintaining dark currents below the "Rule 07" heuristic. At a detector operating temperature of 230 K, we realize 22.8% external quantum efficiency in a detector absorber only 372 nm thick ($\sim\lambda_0 /25$) with peak specific detectivity of $2.29x10^{9}$ cm Hz$^{1/2}$ W$^{-1}$ at 9.6 $\mu$m, well above commercial detectors at the same operating temperature.