Enhanced Dielectric Environment Sensitivity of Surface Plasmon-Polariton in the Surface-Barrier Heterostructures Based on Corrugated Thin Metal Films with Quasi-Anticorrelated Interfaces

A new approach to the formation of a 1D planar periodicity on the front of a plasmonic photodetector based on Schottky barrier is proposed. It allows forming a 1D planar periodicity with corrugation at the “metal/environment” interface by laser interference lithography using embedded chalcogenide wires, whereas the “metal/semiconductor” interface is flat that leads to reducing of surface recombination losses at Shottky barrier in contrary to the conventional technology for forming corrugated metal films on the semiconductor surface requiring chemical etching of the semiconductor substrate. In this case, the metal film interfaces are quasi-anticorrelated as opposed to correlated ones in the conventional technology. It has been theoretically predicted that the polarization sensitivity (T (p)/T (s)) strongly depends on the cross-sectional shape of chalcogenide wires and reaches a value of 8. Furthermore, it was theoretically found that the maximum sensitivity of the signal intensity on the environment refractive index is three times larger than for an equivalent structure obtained by conventional technology. Comparison of experimental data for the photocurrent in the case of two types of correlation between metal film interfaces demonstrates good agreement with numerical simulations.