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Plasmon resonant amplification of a hot electron-driven photodiode

Nano Research volume 11, pages 2310–2314 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

We report plasmon resonant excitation of hot electrons in a photodetector based on a metal/oxide/metal (Au/Al2O3/graphene) heterostructure. In this device, hot electrons, excited optically in the gold layer, jump over the oxide barrier and are injected into the graphene layer, producing a photocurrent. To amplify this process, the bottom gold electrode is patterned into a plasmon resonant grating structure with a pitch of 500 nm. The photocurrent produced in this device is measured using 633-nm-wavelength light as a function of incident angle. We observe the maximum photocurrent at ±10° from normal incidence under irra-diation with light polarized parallel to the incident plane (p-polarization) and perpendicular to the lines on the grating, and a constant (angle-independent) photocurrent under irradiation with light polarized perpendicular to the incident plane (s-polarization) and parallel to the grating. These data show an amplification factor of 4.6× under resonant conditions. At the same angle (±10°), we also observe sharp dips in the photoreflectance corresponding to waveve-ctor matching between the incident light and the plasmon mode in the grating. In addition, finite-difference time-domain simulations predict sharp dips in the photoreflectance at ±10°, and the electric field intensity profiles show clear excitation of a plasmon resonant mode when illuminated with p-polarized light at this angle.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by NSF Award No. CBET-1512505 (L. S.), Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant No. FA9550-15-1-0184 (B. H.), Army Research Office (ARO) Award No. W911NF-14-1-0228 (H. S.), Department of Energy (DOE) Award No. DE-FG02-07ER46376 (N. P.), and ACS-PRF grant #55993-ND5 (J. C.).

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Author notes

  1. Lang Shen and Nirakar Poudel contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Lang Shen

  2. Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Nirakar Poudel, Bingya Hou, Jihan Chen & Stephen B. Cronin

  3. Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    George N. Gibson

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Haotian Shi

  5. Ciencia Inc., East Hartford, CT, 06108, USA

    George N. Gibson, Ernest Guignon, William D. Page & Arturo Pilar

  6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Stephen B. Cronin

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  1. Lang Shen
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  2. Nirakar Poudel
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  4. Bingya Hou
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  5. Jihan Chen
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  10. Stephen B. Cronin
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Correspondence to Stephen B. Cronin.

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Shen, L., Poudel, N., Gibson, G.N. et al. Plasmon resonant amplification of a hot electron-driven photodiode. Nano Res. 11, 2310–2314 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1854-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1854-2

Keywords

  • hot electrons
  • plasmonic resonance
  • plasmon
  • grating
  • photocurrent
  • non-equilibrium