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Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in detectors capable of detecting single photons in the near-infrared (NIR), mainly due to the emergence of new applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) for, e.g., autonomous driving. A silicon single-photon avalanche diode is surely one...

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Autores principales: Scattolo, Elia, Cian, Alessandro, Petti, Luisa, Lugli, Paolo, Giubertoni, Damiano, Paternoster, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860920/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679653
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020856
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author Scattolo, Elia
Cian, Alessandro
Petti, Luisa
Lugli, Paolo
Giubertoni, Damiano
Paternoster, Giovanni
author_facet Scattolo, Elia
Cian, Alessandro
Petti, Luisa
Lugli, Paolo
Giubertoni, Damiano
Paternoster, Giovanni
author_sort Scattolo, Elia
collection PubMed
description Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in detectors capable of detecting single photons in the near-infrared (NIR), mainly due to the emergence of new applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) for, e.g., autonomous driving. A silicon single-photon avalanche diode is surely one of the most interesting and available technologies, although it yields a low efficiency due to the low absorption coefficient of Si in the NIR. Here, we aim at overcoming this limitation through the integration of complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) -compatible nanostructures on silicon photodetectors. Specifically, we utilize silver grating arrays supporting surface plasmons polaritons (SPPs) to superficially confine the incoming NIR photons and therefore to increase the probability of photons generating an electron-hole pair. First, the plasmonic silver array is geometrically designed using time domain simulation software to achieve maximum detector performance at 950 nm. Then, a plasmonic silver array characterized by a pitch of 535 nm, a dot width of 428 nm, and a metal thickness of 110 nm is integrated by means of the focused ion beam technique on the detector. Finally, the integrated detector is electro-optically characterized, demonstrating a QE of 13% at 950 nm, 2.2 times higher than the reference. This result suggests the realization of a silicon device capable of detecting single NIR photons, at a low cost and with compatibility with standard CMOS technology platforms.
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spelling pubmed-98609202023-01-22 Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons Scattolo, Elia Cian, Alessandro Petti, Luisa Lugli, Paolo Giubertoni, Damiano Paternoster, Giovanni Sensors (Basel) Article Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in detectors capable of detecting single photons in the near-infrared (NIR), mainly due to the emergence of new applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) for, e.g., autonomous driving. A silicon single-photon avalanche diode is surely one of the most interesting and available technologies, although it yields a low efficiency due to the low absorption coefficient of Si in the NIR. Here, we aim at overcoming this limitation through the integration of complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) -compatible nanostructures on silicon photodetectors. Specifically, we utilize silver grating arrays supporting surface plasmons polaritons (SPPs) to superficially confine the incoming NIR photons and therefore to increase the probability of photons generating an electron-hole pair. First, the plasmonic silver array is geometrically designed using time domain simulation software to achieve maximum detector performance at 950 nm. Then, a plasmonic silver array characterized by a pitch of 535 nm, a dot width of 428 nm, and a metal thickness of 110 nm is integrated by means of the focused ion beam technique on the detector. Finally, the integrated detector is electro-optically characterized, demonstrating a QE of 13% at 950 nm, 2.2 times higher than the reference. This result suggests the realization of a silicon device capable of detecting single NIR photons, at a low cost and with compatibility with standard CMOS technology platforms. MDPI 2023-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9860920/ /pubmed/36679653 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020856 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Scattolo, Elia
Cian, Alessandro
Petti, Luisa
Lugli, Paolo
Giubertoni, Damiano
Paternoster, Giovanni
Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title_full Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title_fullStr Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title_full_unstemmed Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title_short Near Infrared Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Photodiodes by Integration of Metal Nanostructures Supporting Surface Plasmon Polaritrons
title_sort near infrared efficiency enhancement of silicon photodiodes by integration of metal nanostructures supporting surface plasmon polaritrons
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860920/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679653
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020856
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