Interface Engineered Moir\'e Graphene Superlattices: Breaking the Auger Carrier Multiplication Limit for Infrared Single-Photon Detection

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that twisting bilayer graphene to a specific angle creates a superlattice that significantly enhances hot electron carrier multiplication, enabling highly sensitive infrared single-photon detection beyond previous limits.

Contribution

The study introduces a layer-dependent electronic correlation in moiré graphene that boosts carrier multiplication by three orders of magnitude, surpassing traditional Auger limits.

Findings

Carrier multiplication gain of 10^3 achieved

Enhanced interlayer coupling in moiré graphene

High sensitivity IR detection with >100 dB SNR

Abstract

Hot electrons undergo Auger scattering during their relaxation process has a multiplication effect,which can generate more electrons above the Fermi level, thus improving the efficiency of photoelectric signal conversion.However,the photo-current gain brought by the Auger carrier multiplication is generally limited with a value less than 5,due to the rapid recombination of photo-generated charge-carriers and the inherently low light absorption of two-dimensional materials.Herein,by twisting graphene to an interlayer angle of 10_o,we report a layer-dependent electronic correlations leading to an efficient carrier multiplication gain of 10³.This is primarily offered by the additional localized density-of-states at interface of the bi-layer 10_o,moire graphene,and the enhanced interlayer coupling of electron waves in a five-layer moire graphene superlattice structure.Therefore,we can harvest the hot electrons during their energy relaxation through a thermalized optical phonon bottleneck effect.It is this effect that promotes the accumulated hot electrons to achieve a maximum Auger scattering rate ~ 10¹⁰*ps^-1*cm^-2.Furthermore,the ballistic transport of these hot electrons and Schottky barrier from a 90 nm thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) silicon effectively block the thermal noise,thus leading to a highly sensitive near-infrared detection characteristic.At a low incident light power of ~ 10^-13 W/cm²,the resulting signal-to-noise ratio is more than 100 dB.The strengthened electromagnetic interaction from highly thermalized optical phonon in stacked moire graphene is utilized in this work.The hot electron multiplication suggests the applicability of Van der Waals moire superlattice architecture for harvesting charge carriers,thus paving the pathway to design infrared single-photon avalanche detectors.