Nano Letters on line published plasmonic enhanced Graphene-Antenna Sandwich Photodetector investigation. (Nano Letters 2012, 12, doi: 10.1021/nl301774e)

Nanoscale antennas sandwiched between two graphene monolayers yield a photodetector that efficiently converts visible and near-infrared photons intoelectrons with an 800% enhancement of the photocurrent relative to the antennalessgraphene device. The antenna contributes to the photocurrent in two ways: by thetransfer of hot electrons generated in the antenna structure upon plasmon decay, as wellas by direct plasmon-enhanced excitation of intrinsic graphene electrons due to theantenna near fi eld. This results in a graphene-based photodetector achieving up to 20% internal quantum efficiency in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum.This device can serve as a model for merging the light-harvesting characteristics ofoptical frequency antennas with the highly attractive transport properties of graphene innew optoelectronic devices.

After published on line for one week, this paper was highlighted by Nature Physics and C&E news http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/06/Graphene-Sandwich-Detects-Light.html, and recommended as future research direction for this new field named “Graphene Plasmoncis”

This work was supported by State Key Lab for Mesoscopic Physics, and school of physics, Peking University.