A sensitive red light nano-photodetector propelled by plasmonic copper nanoparticles

Abstract

Plasmonic optoelectronic device based non-noble metal nanostructures (e.g. Al, In, etc.) have recently received increasing research interest due to their relatively low fabrication cost and tunable plasmon wavelength. In this study, we present a new plasmonic red light nano-photodetector by decorating a multi-layer graphene (MLG)–CdSe nanoribbon (CdSeNR) Schottky junction with a highly ordered plasmonic copper nanoparticle (CuNP) array, which exhibited obvious localized surface plasmon resonance in the range of 700–900 nm. Optoelectronic analysis reveals that the device metrics including the switch ratio, the responsivity and the detectivity considerably increased after functionalization with plasmonic CuNPs. Moreover, the response speed was fastened by nearly one order of magnitude. The observed optimization in device performance, according to theoretical simulations based on the finite element method (FEM) and experimental analysis, could be attributed to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) induced hot electron injection. The above results signify that the present plasmonic CuNPs are equally important candidates for boosting the device performance of nano-optoelectronic devices.