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Polarization-resolved black phosphorus/molybdenum disulfide mid-wave infrared photodiodes with high detectivity at room temperature

Nature Photonics volume 12, pages 601–607 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Infrared photodetectors are currently subject to a rapidly expanding application space, with an increasing demand for compact, sensitive and inexpensive detectors. Despite continued advancement, technological factors limit the widespread usage of such detectors, specifically, the need for cooling and the high costs associated with processing of iii–v/ii–vi semiconductors. Here, black phosphorous (bP)/MoS2 heterojunction photodiodes are explored as mid-wave infrared (MWIR) detectors. Although previous studies have demonstrated photodiodes using bP, here we significantly improve the performance, showing that such devices can be competitive with conventional MWIR photodetectors. By optimizing the device structure and light management, we demonstrate a two-terminal device that achieves room-temperature external quantum efficiencies (ηe) of 35% and specific detectivities (D*) as high as 1.1 × 1010 cm Hz1/2 W−1 in the MWIR region. Furthermore, by leveraging the anisotropic optical properties of bP we demonstrate the first bias-selectable polarization-resolved photodetector that operates without the need for external optics.

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Fig. 1: bP/MoS2 heterojunction photodiode concept.
Fig. 2: Infrared optical constants of bP.
Fig. 3: Photoresponse and detectivity.
Fig. 4: Frequency response and noise.
Fig. 5: Polarization-resolved bP/MoS2 heterojunction photodiode.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank P. Wijewarnasuriya and E. DeCuir from the US Army Research Laboratory for discussions. This work was supported by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract no. HR0011-16-1-0004. K.B.C. acknowledges funding from the Australian Research Council (DP150103736 and FT140100577) and an Innovation Fellowship from the Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge and Innovation (VESKI).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: James Bullock, Matin Amani.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    James Bullock, Matin Amani, Joy Cho, Geun Ho Ahn, Valerio Adinolfi & Ali Javey

  2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    James Bullock, Matin Amani, Joy Cho, Geun Ho Ahn, Valerio Adinolfi & Ali Javey

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Yu-Ze Chen & Yu-Lun Chueh

  4. School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Vivek Raj Shrestha & Kenneth B. Crozier

  5. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Yang Gao & Kenneth B. Crozier

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Contributions

J.B., M.A. and A.J. conceived the idea for the project and designed the experiments. J.B. and M.A. performed optical measurements. M.A., J.B., J.C. and G.H.A. fabricated devices. V.A. performed device simulations. Y.-Z.C. and Y.-L.C. performed TEM measurements. J.B, M.A., V.A., V.R.S., Y.G., K.B.C. and A.J. analysed the data. J.B., M.A. and A.J. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ali Javey.

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Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Figures and additional information about the work such as photodiode fabrication and performance and laser diode characterization

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Bullock, J., Amani, M., Cho, J. et al. Polarization-resolved black phosphorus/molybdenum disulfide mid-wave infrared photodiodes with high detectivity at room temperature. Nature Photon 12, 601–607 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0239-8

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