Design of high-sensitivity plasmonics-assisted GaAs metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors

Abstract

In this paper, we use the finite difference timedomain (FDTD) method to optimize the light absorption of an ultrafast plasmonic GaAs metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector (MSM-PD) employing metal nano-gratings. The MSM-PD is optimized geometrically, leading to improved light absorption near the designed wavelength of GaAs through plasmon-assisted electric and magnetic field concentration through a subwavelength aperture. Simulation results show up to 10-times light absorption enhancement at 867 nm due to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagation through the metal nano-grating, in comparison to conventional MSM-PD.