Spectrally selective ultrathin photodetectors using strong interference in nanocavity design

Abstract

Thinning the active layer's thickness of the semiconductor down to a level comparable with the carriers' diffusion length while keeping its absorption high is an ultimate goal to boost the performance of optoelectronic devices. Strong interference in multilayer structures is one of the promising and practical solutions owing to their simple and large-scale compatible fabrication route. These nanocavity designs not only provide near unity absorption, but they can also be designed in a way that a spectrally selective absorption response can be achieved. In this letter, we will demonstrate the functionality of a metal- insulator-semiconductor (MIS) cavity to obtain spectrally selective ultrathin photodetectors. To prove our theoretical and numerical findings, a 4-nm-thick amorphous silicon (aSi)-based MIS cavity is designed, fabricated, and characterized. The experimental results show that the optimized cavity design can act as an efficient visible blind ultraviolet (UV) photodetector. The proposed design shows the responsivity values of 120 and 2.5 mA/W in the UV (λ = 350 nm) and visible (λ = 500 nm) regions, respectively.