High-speed graphene-silicon-graphene waveguide PDs with high photo-to-dark-current ratio and large linear dynamic range

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates high-speed graphene-silicon-graphene waveguide photodetectors operating at 1.55 and 2 micrometers, achieving high responsivity, ultra-low dark current, and large linear dynamic range, suitable for integrated broadband applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel graphene-silicon-graphene waveguide photodetector with record-high bandwidth and dynamic range, advancing silicon-2D material photodetector integration.

Findings

Bandwidth of ~33 GHz achieved.

Dark current reduced to tens of pico-amperes.

High photo-to-dark-current ratio of 1.63x10^6 W^-1.

Abstract

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs) meet the demand of broadband and low-cost photodetection on silicon for many applications. Currently, it is still very challenging to realize excellent silicon-2DM PDs. Here we demonstrate graphene-silicon-graphene waveguide PDs operating at the wavelength-bands of 1.55 {\mu}m and 2 {\mu}m, showing the potential for large-scale integration. For the fabricated PDs, the measured responsivities are respectively ~0.15 mA/W and ~0.015 mA/W for the wavelengths of 1.55 {\mu}m and 1.96{\mu}m. In particular, the PDs exhibit a high bandwidth of ~33 GHz, an ultra-low dark current of tens of pico-amperes, a high normalized photo-to-dark-current ratio (NPDR) of 1.63x10^6 W^-1, as well as a high linear dynamic range of 3 {\mu}W-1.86 mW (and beyond) at 1.55 {\mu}m. According to the measurement results for the wavelength-bands of 1.55/2.0 {\mu}m and the theoretical modeling for the silicon-graphene heterostructure, it is revealed that internal photo-emission and photo-assisted thermionic field emission dominantly contribute to the photoresponse in the graphene-silicon Schottky junctions, which helps the future work to further improve the performance.