Plasmonic Enhancement of Graphene Long-Wave Infrared Photodetectors via Bull's Eye Concentrator, Optical Cavity and Nanoantennas

The long-wave infrared photodetector device we study in this work is shown in Fig. 1 (a) and (b). A bull's eye grating collects the incident light from a large area (101 μm diam.), and couples it into surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) [1] that converge at its center, at which there is an opening in the Au plate on which the grating sits. Within this opening (or aperture), Au nanobar antennas separated by small gaps are arranged in a radial fashion. These enhance the electromagnetic field in the near-field zone, particularly in the gaps, through localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) [2]. This enhances the absorption in the underlying material, here a small circle (6.32 μm diam.) of graphene. The absorption is boosted further by forming an optical cavity under the graphene. We optimized the geometrical parameters to maximise absorption in the graphene at λ = 9.4 μm via finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic simulations. These geometric parameters are listed in Fig. 1 (c)-(f).