High performance plasmonically enhanced graphene photodetector for near-infrared wavelengths

Graphene is a very attractive material for applications in optoelectronic devices such as photodetectors because of fast response and broadband absorption. However, the weak absorption of the graphene layer limits the performance of graphene-based photodetectors. To this end, a high responsivity graphene-based plasmonic photodetector, operating over a wide optical wavelength range, is presented. In order to enhance the light absorption efficiency and, consequently, to improve the responsivity of the photodetector, a graphene layer and a specific plasmonic nanostructure are combined. The numerical simulation results reveal that nearly perfect light absorption is achieved at the wavelength of 1550 nm for the proposed structure and also, this structure is polarization insensitive and enables perfect absorption for TE and TM polarizations at the wavelength of 1550 nm. The circuit model of the structure is presented based on transmission line theory whose results are in very good agreement with the numerical simulation results. Also, the high responsivity of 513 mA/W and the bandwidth of 47 GHz are achieved for this scheme. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America