Strong Responsivity Enhancement of Quantum Dot‐in‐a‐Well Infrared Photodetectors Using Plasmonic Structures

Abstract Detector responsivity enhancement from integrating optimized plasmonic structure layers into quantum dot‐in‐a‐well photodetectors is investigated by a finite integration technique‐based simulation. It is found that by including a 0.1 µm thick gold hole‐array layer onto a backside illuminated photodetector, the peak detector responsivity is enhanced by nearly a factor of 8. A 0.2 µm thick gold disk‐array layer improves the peak responsivity by around 15 instead. The calculated enhancement factors show a good agreement with experimental data by Gu et al.[1] and Lee et al.[2] Simulation method and analytical analysis accomplished in this paper provide a generalized approach to design optimal plasmonic structures integrated to various infrared detecting device configurations.