Highly Sensitive Wavelength-scale Amorphous Hybrid Plasmonic Detectors

The integration of active plasmonics into silicon technologies is demonstrated in a hybrid plasmonic waveguide photodetector. The waveguide not only provides nanoscale-confinement and enhanced light-matter-interaction, but photogeneration is also via internal photoemission along metal-amorphous silicon interfaces. The performance is measured down to 5μm-long devices, showing -35dBm sensitivity, 0.2nA dark current, operates athermally up to 100°C and capable of confinement and photogeneration within 1.2-1.8μm wavelengths. The device uses deposited amorphous materials allowing non-intrusive CMOS integration and outperforms crystalline counterparts, as well as capable of integrating with dielectric waveguides with only 1.5dB coupling loss.