Letter abstract
Nature Materials 5, 352 - 356 (2006)
doi:10.1038/nmat1635
Subject Categories: Semiconductors | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Nanoscale materials
Nanoscale avalanche photodiodes for highly sensitive and spatially resolved photon detection
Oliver Hayden1,3,5, Ritesh Agarwal1,4,5 and Charles M. Lieber1,2
Integrating nanophotonics with electronics could enhance and/or enable opportunities in areas ranging from communications and computing to novel diagnostics1, 2. Light sources and detectors are important elements for integration1, and key progress has been made using semiconducting nanowires3, 4, 5 and carbon nanotubes to yield electrically driven sources6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and photoconductor detectors13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Detection with photoconductors has relatively poor sensitivity at the nanometre scale, and thus large amplification is required to detect low light levels and ultimately single photons with reasonable response time. Here, we report avalanche multiplication of the photocurrent in nanoscale p–n diodes consisting of crossed silicon–cadmium sulphide nanowires. Electrical transport and optical measurements demonstrate that the nanowire avalanche photodiodes (nanoAPDs) have ultrahigh sensitivity with detection limits of less than 100 photons, and subwavelength spatial resolution of at least 250 nm. Crossed nanowire arrays also show that nanoAPDs are reproducible and can be addressed independently without cross-talk. NanoAPDs and arrays could open new opportunities for ultradense integrated systems, sensing and imaging applications.
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
- Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
- Current address: IBM Research GmbH, Zürich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
- Current address: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6272, USA
- These authors contributed equally to the work
Correspondence to: Charles M. Lieber1,2 e-mail: cml@cmliris.harvard.edu
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