Abstract
Layered two-dimensional materials have demonstrated novel optoelectronic properties and are well suited for integration in planar photonic circuits. Graphene, for example, has been utilized for wideband photodetection. However, because graphene lacks a bandgap, graphene photodetectors suffer from very high dark current. In contrast, layered black phosphorous, the latest addition to the family of two-dimensional materials, is ideal for photodetector applications due to its narrow but finite bandgap. Here, we demonstrate a gated multilayer black phosphorus photodetector integrated on a silicon photonic waveguide operating in the near-infrared telecom band. In a significant advantage over graphene devices, black phosphorus photodetectors can operate under bias with very low dark current and attain an intrinsic responsivity up to 135 mA W−1 and 657 mA W−1 in 11.5-nm- and 100-nm-thick devices, respectively, at room temperature. The photocurrent is dominated by the photovoltaic effect with a high response bandwidth exceeding 3 GHz.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Xia, F., Wang, H., Xiao, D., Dubey, M. & Ramasubramaniam, A. Two-dimensional material nanophotonics. Nature Photon. 8, 899–907 (2014).
Avouris, P. Graphene: electronic and photonic properties and devices. Nano Lett. 10, 4285–4294 (2010).
Bonaccorso, F., Sun, Z., Hasan, T. & Ferrari, A. C. Graphene photonics and optoelectronics. Nature Photon. 4, 611–622 (2010).
Xia, F., Mueller, T., Lin, Y. M., Valdes-Garcia, A. & Avouris, P. Ultrafast graphene photodetector. Nature Nanotech. 4, 839–843 (2009).
Mueller, T., Xia, F. & Avouris, P. Graphene photodetectors for high-speed optical communications. Nature Photon. 4, 297–301 (2010).
Pospischil, A. et al. CMOS-compatible graphene photodetector covering all optical communication bands. Nature Photon. 7, 892–896 (2013).
Gan, X. et al. Chip-integrated ultrafast graphene photodetector with high responsivity. Nature Photon. 7, 883–887 (2013).
Freitag, M., Low, T., Xia, F. N. & Avouris, P. Photoconductivity of biased graphene. Nature Photon. 7, 53–59 (2013).
Wang, Q. H., Kalantar-Zadeh, K., Kis, A., Coleman, J. N. & Strano, M. S. Electronics and optoelectronics of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. Nature Nanotech. 7, 699–712 (2012).
Mak, K. F., Lee, C., Hone, J., Shan, J. & Heinz, T. F. Atomically thin MoS2: a new direct-gap semiconductor. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 136805 (2010).
Ellis, J. K., Lucero, M. J. & Scuseria, G. E. The indirect to direct band gap transition in multilayered MoS2 as predicted by screened hybrid density functional theory. Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 261908 (2011).
Lopez-Sanchez, O., Lembke, D., Kayci, M., Radenovic, A. & Kis, A. Ultrasensitive photodetectors based on monolayer MoS2 . Nature Nanotech. 8, 497–501 (2013).
Li, L. et al. Black phosphorus field-effect transistors. Nature Nanotech. 9, 372–377 (2014).
Liu, H. et al. Phosphorene: an unexplored 2D semiconductor with a high hole mobility. ACS Nano 8, 4033–4041 (2014).
Xia, F., Wang, H. & Jia, Y. Rediscovering black phosphorus as an anisotropic layered material for optoelectronics and electronics. Nature Commun. 5, 4458 (2014).
Das, S. et al. Tunable transport gap in phosphorene. Nano Lett. 14, 5733–5739 (2014).
Takao, Y., Asahina, H. & Morita, A. Electronic structure of black phosphorus in tight binding approach. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 50, 3362–3369 (1981).
Buscema, M., Groenendijk, D. J., Steele, G. A., van der Zant, H. S. J. & Castellanos-Gomez, A. Photovoltaic effect in few-layer black phosphorus PN junctions defined by local electrostatic gating. Nature Commun. 5, 4651 (2014).
Buscema, M. et al. Fast and broadband photoresponse of few-layer black phosphorus field-effect transistors. Nano Lett. 14, 3347–3352 (2014).
Engel, M., Steiner, M. & Avouris, P. Black phosphorus photodetector for multispectral, high-resolution imaging. Nano Lett. 14, 6414–6417 (2014).
Low, T., Engel, M., Steiner, M. & Avouris, P. Origin of photoresponse in black phosphorus phototransistors. Phys. Rev. B 90, 081408 (2014).
Wang, H. et al. Black phosphorus radio-frequency transistors. Nano Lett. 14, 6424–6429 (2014).
Li, H., Anugrah, Y., Koester, S. J. & Li, M. Optical absorption in graphene integrated on silicon waveguides. Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 111110 (2012).
Youngblood, N., Anugrah, Y., Ma, R., Koester, S. J. & Li, M. Multifunctional graphene optical modulator and photodetector integrated on silicon waveguides. Nano Lett. 14, 2741–2746 (2014).
Gan, X. et al. Controlling the spontaneous emission rate of monolayer MoS in a photonic crystal nanocavity. Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 181119 (2013).
Sanfeng, W. et al. Control of two-dimensional excitonic light emission via photonic crystal. 2D Mater. 1, 011001 (2014).
Dean, C. R. et al. Boron nitride substrates for high-quality graphene electronics. Nature Nanotech. 5, 722–726 (2010).
Han, L., Neal, A. T., Mengwei, S., Yuchen, D. & Ye, P. D. The effect of dielectric capping on few-layer phosphorene transistors: tuning the Schottky barrier heights. IEEE Electron. Dev. Lett. 35, 795–797 (2014).
Low, T. et al. Tunable optical properties of multilayer black phosphorus thin films. Phys. Rev. B 90, 075434 (2014).
Hong, T. et al. Polarized photocurrent response in black phosphorus field-effect transistors. Nanoscale 6, 8978–8983 (2014).
Xu, X. D., Gabor, N. M., Alden, J. S., van der Zande, A. M. & McEuen, P. L. Photo-thermoelectric effect at a graphene interface junction. Nano Lett. 10, 562–566 (2010).
Chi On, C., Okyay, A. K. & Saraswat, K. C. Effective dark current suppression with asymmetric MSM photodetectors in Group IV semiconductors. IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 15, 1585–1587 (2003).
Assefa, S. et al. CMOS-integrated high-speed MSM germanium waveguide photodetector. Opt. Express 18, 4986–4999 (2010).
Slack, G. A. Thermal conductivity of elements with complex lattices: B, P, S. Phys. Rev. 139, A507–A515 (1965).
Pernice, W. H. P., Li, M. & Tang, H. X. Gigahertz photothermal effect in silicon waveguides. Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 213106 (2008).
Wang, X. et al. Highly anisotropic and robust excitons in monolayer black phosphorus. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/abs/1411.1695 (2014).
Yuan, H. et al. Broadband linear-dichroic photodetector in a black phosphorus vertical p–n junction. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/abs/1409.4729 (2014).
Deng, Y. et al. Black phosphorus-monolayer MoS2 van der Waals heterojunction P–N diode. ACS Nano 8, 8292–8299 (2014).
Britnell, L. et al. Strong light–matter interactions in heterostructures of atomically thin films. Science 340, 1311–1314 (2013).
Geim, A. K. & Grigorieva, I. V. Van der Waals heterostructures. Nature 499, 419–425 (2013).
Levendorf, M. P. et al. Graphene and boron nitride lateral heterostructures for atomically thin circuitry. Nature 488, 627–632 (2012).
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (award no. FA9550-14-1-0277) and the National Science Foundation (NSF, award no. ECCS-1351002). M.L. thanks X.H. Chen and G.J. Ye of University of Science and Technology of China for providing some of the black phosphorus samples at the initial stage of the project. Parts of this work were carried out in the University of Minnesota Nanofabrication Center, which receives partial support from the NSF through the National Nanotechnolgy Infrastructure Network (NNIN) programme, and the Characterization Facility, which is a member of the NSF-funded Materials Research Facilities Network via the Material Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) programme.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.L. conceived and supervised the research. N.Y. fabricated the devices, performed the measurements and analysed the data. C.C. assisted the fabrication. N.Y., M.L. and S.J.K. analysed the data. M.L., N.Y. and S.J.K. co-wrote the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (PDF 1793 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Youngblood, N., Chen, C., Koester, S. et al. Waveguide-integrated black phosphorus photodetector with high responsivity and low dark current. Nature Photon 9, 247–252 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.23
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.23
This article is cited by
-
On-chip optoelectronic logic gates operating in the telecom band
Nature Photonics (2024)
-
Long operating lifetime mid-infrared LEDs based on black phosphorus
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Two-dimensional semiconducting SnP2Se6 with giant second-harmonic-generation for monolithic on-chip electronic-photonic integration
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Anomalous thickness dependence of photoluminescence quantum yield in black phosphorous
Nature Nanotechnology (2023)
-
Two-dimensional materials-based integrated hardware
Science China Information Sciences (2023)