Integrated Plasmonic Infrared Photodetector Based on Colloidal HgTe Quantum Dots

Abstract This paper presents a 2300 nm wavelength photodetector which comprises a spin‐deposited colloidal HgTe quantum dot (QD) film on a metal‐insulator‐metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide. This photodetector is an integrated device based on the complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor compatible silicon‐on‐insulator platform. The device employs input and output silicon waveguide grating couplers, and HgTe QDs are used as the infrared photosensing material. Infrared light is coupled to the strongly confined MIM waveguide mode, which shrinks the device footprint and improves the light detection efficiency simultaneously. A room temperature responsivity of 23 mA W −1 and a noise‐equivalent power of 8.7 × 10 −11 W Hz −1/2 at 2300 nm wavelength are achieved by the photodetector at 2.14 W mm −2 (measured at the input to the plasmonic waveguide) with a device footprint of 15 µm × 0.35 µm. The light intensity–dependent photocurrent, the current noise spectral density, and the 3 dB operation bandwidth are all characterized. The charge transfer properties of the organic HgTe QD films are further analyzed based on field effect transistor measurements.