Near-Infrared Imaging Highly Enhanced by Pixel-Level Integrated Plasmonic Metasurfaces on CMOS Image Sensors

Near-infrared (NIR) photodetection and imaging have sparked significant interests across a wide range of applications. While silicon photodiodes are commonly employed, the small light absorption coefficients of Si in NIR severely limit the performance, especially in the case of thin active Si layers. Although various light harvesting techniques are proposed to increase light absorption of Si, pixel-level strategy for enhanced NIR imaging is still challenging in CMOS image sensors (CISs) with a pixel size in only a micron scale. In this paper, plasmonic metasurfaces are intimately integrated on top of 2.3 µm thick Si active regions of the pixels of a backside illumination (BI)-CIS for NIR imaging for the first time. 200% improved photoresponsivity is obtained in experiments in such a planar Si layer rather than patterning the Si layer with potential damage to the active region. Numerical simulation results reveal highly enhanced light intensity in the thin active Si layer due to the presence of plasmonic metasurfaces. Significantly improved imaging brightness and signal-to-noise ratio of NIR imaging are demonstrated under both laser and LED illumination. This CMOS-compatible technique is expected to hold promising potentials in applications including machine vision, iris certification, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and optical communication in data centers.