Optical-to-electrical (O-E) conversion in graphene is a central phenomenon for realizing anticipated ultrafast and low-power-consumption information technologies. However, revealing its mechanism and intrinsic time scale require uncharted terahertz (THz) electronics and device architectures. Here, we succeeded in resolving O-E conversion processes in high-quality graphene by on-chip electrical readout of ultrafast photothermoelectric current. By suppressing the RC time constant using a resistive zinc oxide top gate, we constructed a gate-tunable graphene photodetector with a bandwidth of up to 220 GHz. By measuring nonlocal photocurrent dynamics, we found that the photocurrent extraction from the electrode is instantaneous without a measurable carrier transit time across several-micrometer-long graphene, following the Shockley-Ramo theorem. The time for photocurrent generation is exceptionally tunable from immediate to > 4 ps, and its origin is identified as Fermi-level-dependent intraband carrier-carrier scattering. Our results bridge the gap between ultrafast optical science and device engineering, accelerating ultrafast graphene optoelectronic applications.
The strong light emission and absorption exhibited by single atomic layer transitional metal dichalcogenides in the visible to near-infrared wavelength range makes them attractive for optoelectronic applications. In this work, using two-pulse photovoltage correlation technique, we show that monolayer molybdenum disulfide photodetector can have intrinsic response times as short as 3 ps implying photodetection bandwidths as wide as 300 GHz. The fast photodetector response is a result of the short electron-hole and exciton lifetimes in this material. Recombination of photoexcited carriers in most…
We investigate waveguide-integrated plasmonic graphene photodetector operating based on the hot carrier photo-bolometric effect, which is characterized simultaneously by high responsivity on the scale of hundreds of AW-1 and high speed on the scale of 100s of GHz. We develop a theory of bolometric effect originating from the band nonparabolicity of graphene and estimate responsivity due to bolometric effect is shown to significantly surpass the responsivity of co-existing photo-conductive effect thus convincingly demonstrating the dominance of bolometric effect. Based on the theory we propose …
The efforts to pursue photo detection with extreme performance in terms of ultrafast response time, broad detection wavelength range, and high sensitivity have never been exhausted as driven by its wide range of optoelectronic and photonic applications such as optical communications, interconnects, imaging and remote sensing1. 2D Dirac semimetal graphene has shown excellent potential toward high performance photodetector with high operation speed, broadband response and efficient carrier multiplications benefiting from its linear dispersion band structure with high carrier mobility and zero ba…
The demand for high-performance semiconductors in electronics and optoelectronics has prompted the expansion of low-dimensional materials research to ternary compounds. However, photodetectors based on 2D ternary materials usually suffer from large dark currents and slow response, which means increased power consumption and reduced performance. Here we report a systematic study of the optoelectronic properties of well-characterized rhombohedral ZnIn2S4 (R-ZIS) nanosheets which exhibit an extremely low dark current (7 pA at 5 V bias). The superior performance represented by a series of paramete…
In recent years, the data traffic has grown exponentially and the forecasts indicate a huge market that could be addressed by communication infrastructure and service providers. However, the processing capacity, space, and energy consumption of the available technology is a serious bottleneck for the exploitation of these markets. Chip-integrated optical communication systems hold the promise of significantly improving these issues related to the current technology. At the moment, the answer to the question which material is best suited for ultrafast chip integrated communication systems is st…
Ultrafast and sensitive (noise equivalent power <1 nWHz-1/2) light-detection in the Terahertz (THz) frequency range (0.1-10 THz) and at room-temperature is key for applications such as time-resolved THz spectroscopy of gases, complex molecules and cold samples, imaging, metrology, ultra-high-speed data communications, coherent control of quantum systems, quantum optics and for capturing snapshots of ultrafast dynamics, in materials and devices, at the nanoscale. Here, we report room-temperature THz nano-receivers exploiting antenna-coupled graphene field effect transistors integrated with lith…
Graphene has emerged as a promising material for photonic applications fuelled by its superior electronic and optical properties. However, the photoresponsivity is limited by the low absorption cross section and ultrafast recombination rates of photoexcited carriers. Here we demonstrate a photoconductive gain of $\sim$ 10$^5$ electrons per photon in a carbon nanotube-graphene one dimensional-two dimensional hybrid due to efficient photocarriers generation and transport within the nanostructure. A broadband photodetector (covering 400 nm to 1550 nm) based on such hybrid films is fabricated with…
We demonstrate generation of a pulsed stream of electrically triggered single photons in resonance fluorescence, by applying high frequency electrical pulses to a single quantum dot in a p-i-n diode under resonant laser excitation. Single photon emission was verifed, with the probability of multiple photon emission reduced to 2.8%. We show that despite the presence of charge noise in the emission spectrum of the dot, resonant excitation acts as a filter to generate narrow bandwidth photons.
In order to increase the response speed of the InSe-based photodetector with high photoresponsivity, graphene is used as the transparent electrodes to modify the difference of the work function between the electrodes and the InSe. As expected, the response speed of InSe/graphene photodetectors is down to 120 μs, which is about 40 times faster than that of our InSe/metal device. And it can also be tuned by the back-gate voltage from 310 μs down to 100 μs. With high response speed, the photoresponsivity can reach as high as 60 AW-1 simultaneously. Meanwhile the InSe/graphene photodetectors posse…
Graphene-based Photodetector with Engineered Hot Carrier Cooling Dynamics
Imec；Ghent University–imec（根特大学-imec）；Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), CSIC and BIST（加泰罗尼亚纳米科学和纳米技术研究所（ICN2），西班牙高等科学研究委员会和巴塞尔研究所）；TU Eindhoven（埃因霍温理工大学）；Utrecht University（乌得勒支大学）；The University of Manchester（曼彻斯特大学）
Graphene is an ideal material to study fundamental Coulomb- and phonon-induced carrier scattering processes. Its remarkable gapless and linear band structure opens up new carrier relaxation channels. In particular, Auger scattering bridging the valence and the conduction band changes the number of charge carriers and gives rise to a significant carrier multiplication - an ultrafast many-particle phenomenon that is promising for the design of highly efficient photodetectors. Furthermore, the vanishing density of states at the Dirac point combined with ultrafast phonon-induced intraband scatteri…
With its electrically tunable light absorption and ultrafast photoresponse, graphene is a promising candidate for high-speed chip-integrated photonics. The generation mechanisms of photosignals in graphene photodetectors have been studied extensively in the past years. However, the knowledge about efficient light conversion at graphene pn-junctions has not yet been translated into high-performance devices. Here, we present a graphene photodetector integrated on a silicon slot-waveguide, acting as a dual-gate to create a pn-junction in the optical absorption region of the device. While at zero …
We report the magnetic response of Co/Pt multilayers to picosecond electrical heating. Using photoconductive Auston switches, we generate electrical pulses with 5.5 picosecond duration and hundreds of pico-Joules to pass through Co/Pt multilayers. The electrical pulse heats the electrons in the Co/Pt multilayers and causes an ultrafast reduction in the magnetic moment. A comparison between optical and electrically induced demagnetization of the Co/Pt multilayers reveals significantly different dynamics for optical vs. electrical heating. We attribute the disparate dynamics to the dependence of…
We theoretically investigate the generation of ultrafast currents in insulators induced by strong few-cycle laser pulses. Ab initio simulations based on time-dependent density functional theory give insight into the atomic-scale properties of the induced current signifying a femtosecond-scale insulator-metal transition. We observe the transition from nonlinear polarization currents during the laser pulse at low intensities to tunnelinglike excitation into the conduction band at higher laser intensities. At high intensities, the current persists after the conclusion of the laser pulse considere…
Graphene is a promising material for ultrafast and broadband photodetection. Earlier studies addressed the general operation of graphene-based photo-thermoelectric devices, and the switching speed, which is limited by the charge carrier cooling time, on the order of picoseconds. However, the generation of the photovoltage could occur at a much faster time scale, as it is associated with the carrier heating time. Here, we measure the photovoltage generation time and find it to be faster than 50 femtoseconds. As a proof-of-principle application of this ultrafast photodetector, we use graphene to…
Metamaterials have recently established a new paradigm for enhanced light absorption in state-of-the-art photodetectors. Here, we demonstrate broadband, highly efficient, polarization-insensitive, and gate-tunable photodetection at room temperature in a novel metadevice based on gold/graphene Sierpinski carpet plasmonic fractals. We observed an unprecedented internal quantum efficiency up to 100% from the near-infrared to the visible range with an upper bound of optical detectivity of $10^{11}$ Jones and a gain up to $10^{6}$, which is a fingerprint of multiple hot carriers photogenerated in g…
Integrated electro-optical switches are essential as one of the fundamental elements in the development of modern optoelectronics. As an architecture for photonic systems, exciton polaritons, that are hybrid bosonic quasiparticles that possess unique properties derived from both excitons and photons, have shown much promise. For this system, we demonstrate a significant improvement of emitted intensity and condensation threshold by applying an electric field to a microcavity filled with an organic microbelt. Our theoretical investigations indicate that the electric field makes the excitons dip…
We present a graphene photodetector for telecom applications based on a silicon photonic crystal defect waveguide. The photonic structure is used to confine the propagating light in a narrow region in the graphene layer to enhance light-matter interaction. Additionally, it is utilized as split-gate electrode to create a pn-junction in the vicinity of the optical absorption region. The photonic crystal defect waveguide allows for optimal photo-thermoelectric conversion of the occurring temperature profile in graphene into a photovoltage due to additional silicon slabs on both sides of the waveg…
The field of spintronics involves the study of both spin and charge transport in solid state devices with a view toward increasing their functionality and efficiency. Alternatively, the field of ultrafast magnetism focuses on the use of femtosecond laser pulses to excite electrons in magnetic materials, which allows the magnetic order to be dramatically changed on unprecedented sub-picosecond time-scales. Here, we unite these two distinct research activities by using picosecond electrical pulses to rapidly excite electrons in a magnetic metal. We are able to deterministically and repetitively …
Avalanche photodetectors (APDs) are key components in optical communication systems due to their increased photocurrent gain and short response time as compared to conventional photodetectors. A detector design where the multiplication region is implemented in a large bandgap material is desired to avoid detrimental Zener tunneling leakage currents, a concern otherwise in smaller bandgap materials required for absorption at 1.3/1.55 um. Self-assembled III-V semiconductor nanowires offer key advantages such as enhanced absorption due to optical resonance effects, strain-relaxed heterostructures…
Due to the excellent electrical transport properties and optoelectronic performance, thin indium selenide (InSe) has recently attracted attention in the field of 2D semiconducting materials. However, the mechanism behind the photocurrent generation in thin InSe photodetectors remains elusive. Here, we present a set of experiments aimed at explaining the strong scattering in the photoresponsivity values reported in the literature for thin InSe photodetectors. By performing optoelectronic measurements on thin InSe-based photodetectors operated under different environmental conditions we find tha…
A critical challenge for the integration of the optoelectronics is that photodetectors have relatively poor sensitivities at the nanometer scale. It is generally believed that a large electrodes spacing in photodetectors is required to absorb sufficient light to maintain high photoresponsivity and reduce the dark current. However, this will limit the optoelectronic integration density. Through spatially resolved photocurrent investigation, we find that the photocurrent in metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors based on layered GaSe is mainly generated from the photoexcited carriers clo…
We present a proof of concept for a spectrally selective near-infrared (NIR) and short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) photodetector based on nanopatterned multilayer graphene intercalated with FeCl$_3$ (NPMLG-FeCl$_3$), enabling large modulation p-doping of graphene. The localized surface plasmons (LSPs) on the graphene sheets in NPMLG-FeCl$_3$ allow for electrostatic tuning of the photodetection in the NIR and SWIR regimes from $λ=1.3$ $μ$m to 3 $μ$m, which is out of range for nanopatterned monolayer graphene (NPG). Most importantly, the LSPs along with an optical cavity increase the absorbance f…
Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures that hold great promise as nanoscale information carriers in non-volatile memory and logic devices. While room-temperature magnetic skyrmions and their current-induced manipulation were recently demonstrated, the stray field resulting from their finite magnetization as well as their topological charge limit their minimum size and reliable motion in tracks. Antiferromagnetic (AF) skyrmions allow these limitations to be lifted owing to their vanishing magnetization and net zero topological charge, promising room-temperature, ultrasmall skyrmions, …
We present a physics based multiscale materials-to-systems model for polycrystalline $PbSe$ photodetectors that connects fundamental material properties to circuit level performance metrics. From experimentally observed film structures and electrical characterization, we first develop a bandstructure model that explains carrier-type inversion and large carrier lifetimes in sensitized films. The unique bandstructure of the photosensitive film causes separation of generated carriers with holes migrating to the inverted $PbSe|PbI_2$ interface, while electrons are trapped in the bulk of the film i…
Strongly correlated materials that exhibit an insulator-metal transition are key candidates in the search for new computing platforms. Understanding the pathways and timescales underlying the electrically-driven insulator-metal transition is crucial for uncovering the fundamental limits of device operation. Using stroboscopic electron diffraction, we perform synchronized time-resolved measurements of atomic motions and electronic transport in operating vanadium dioxide switches. We discover an electrically-triggered, isostructural state that forms transiently on microsecond timescales, stabili…
For future on-chip communication schemes, it is essential to integrate nanoscale materials with an ultrafast optoelectronic functionality into high-frequency circuits. The atomically thin graphene has been widely demonstrated to be suitable for photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices because of its broadband optical absorption and its high electron mobility. Moreover, the ultrafast relaxation of photogenerated charge carriers has been verified in graphene. Here, we show that dual-gated graphene junctions can be functional parts of THz-circuits. As the underlying optoelectronic process, we expl…
Graphene is an ideal material for hot-electron bolometers, due to its low heat capacity and weak electron-phonon coupling. Nanostructuring graphene with quantum dot constrictions yields detectors with extraordinarily high intrinsic responsivity, higher than 1x10^9 V/W at 3K. The sensing mechanism is bolometric in nature: the quantum confinement gap causes a strong dependence of the electrical resistance on the electron temperature. Here we show that this quantum confinement gap does not impose a limitation on the photon energy for light detection and these quantum dot bolometers work in a very…
The integration of different two-dimensional materials within a multilayer van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure offers a promising technology for realizing high performance opto-electronic devices such as photodetectors and light sources1-3. Transition metal dichalcogenides, e.g. MoS2 and WSe2, have been employed as the optically-active layer in recently developed heterojunctions. However, MoS2 and WSe2 become direct band gap semiconductors only in mono- or bilayer form4,5. In contrast, the metal monochalcogenides InSe and GaSe retain a direct bandgap over a wide range of layer thicknesses from…
Dielectric control of ultrafast carrier dynamics and transport in graphene
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research（马克斯·普朗克聚合物研究所）；Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University（乌得勒支大学德拜纳米科学研究所）；Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), CSIC and BIST（加泰罗尼亚纳米科学与纳米技术研究所（ICN2，西班牙高等科学研究委员会和巴塞罗那独立科学与技术基金会））；School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester（曼彻斯特大学物理与天文学学院）；Department of Applied Physics, TU Eindhoven（埃因霍温理工大学应用物理系）
Integrating and manipulating the nano-optoelectronic properties of Van der Waals heterostructures can enable unprecedented platforms for photodetection and sensing. The main challenge of infrared photodetectors is to funnel the light into a small nanoscale active area and efficiently convert it into an electrical signal. Here, we overcome all of those challenges in one device, by efficient coupling of a plasmonic antenna to hyperbolic phonon-polaritons in hexagonal-BN to highly concentrate mid-infrared light into a graphene pn-junction. We balance the interplay of the absorption, electrical an…
For many of the envisioned optoelectronic applications of graphene it is crucial to understand the sub-picosecond carrier dynamics immediately following photoexcitation, as well as the effect on the electrical conductivity - the photoconductivity. Whereas these topics have been studied using various ultrafast experiments and theoretical approaches, controversial and incomplete explanations have been put forward concerning the sign of the photoconductivity, the occurrence and significance of the creation of additional electron-hole pairs, and, in particular, how the relevant processes depend on…
Recent advances in the growth of III-V semiconductor nanowires (NWs) hold great promise for nanoscale optoelectronic device applications. Recently, it was found that a small amount of nitrogen (N) incorporation in III-V semiconductor NWs can effectively red-shift their wavelength of operation and tailor their electronic properties for specific applications. However, understanding the impact of N incorporation on non-equilibrium charge carrier dynamics and transport in semiconducting NWs is critical in achieving efficient semiconducting NW devices. In this work, ultrafast optical pump-terahertz…
The requirement for optical-electrical-optical conversion of signals in optical technologies is often one of the majors bottleneck in terms of speed and energy consumption. The use of dressed photons (also called polaritons), that allows for intrinsic sizable interactions, could significantly improve the performances of optical integrated elements such as switches or optical gates. In this work we demonstrate the ultrafast switch of a laser coupled into a polaritonic waveguide triggered by an optical pulse resonant with the same dispersion but at a lower energy. Our experiments show two effect…
Nonradiative transfer processes are often regarded as loss channels for an optical emitter1, since they are inherently difficult to be experimentally accessed. Recently, it has been shown that emitters, such as fluorophores and nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond, can exhibit a strong nonradiative energy transfer to graphene. So far, the energy of the transferred electronic excitations has been considered to be lost within the electron bath of the graphene. Here, we demonstrate that the trans-ferred excitations can be read-out by detecting corresponding currents with picosecond time resolution…
Graphene has recently been shown to be permeable to thermal protons, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, which sparked interest in its use as a proton-conducting membrane in relevant technologies. However, the influence of light on proton permeation remains unknown. Here we report that proton transport through Pt-nanoparticle-decorated graphene can be enhanced strongly by illuminating it with visible light. Using electrical measurements and mass spectrometry, we find a photoresponsivity of 10^4 A W-1, which translates into a gain of 10^4 protons per photon with response times in the microsecond rang…
Due to its high charge carrier mobility, broadband light absorption, and ultrafast carrier dynamics, graphene is a promising material for the development of high-performance photodetectors. Graphene-based photodetectors have been demonstrated to date using monolayer graphene operating in conjunction with either metals or semiconductors. Most graphene devices are fabricated on doped Si substrates with SiO2 dielectric used for back gating. Here, we demonstrate photodetection in graphene field effect phototransistors fabricated on undoped semiconductor (SiC) substrates. The photodetection mechani…
