Plasmonically enhanced graphene photodetector featuring 100 Gbit/s data reception, high responsivity, and compact size

Graphene has shown great potential for high-speed photodetection. Yet, the responsivities of graphene-based high-speed photodetectors are commonly limited by the weak effective absorption of atomically thin graphene. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a plasmonically enhanced waveguide-integrated graphene photodetector. The device, which combines a 6 μm long layer of graphene with field-enhancing nanosized metallic structures, demonstrates a high external responsivity of 0.5 A/W and a fast photoresponse up to at least 110 GHz. The high efficiency and fast response of the device enables for the first time 100 Gbit/s on-off keying and 100 Gbit/s PAM-4 intensity modulated data reception with a graphene-based device. The results show the potential of graphene as a new technology for highest speed communication applications.