Monday, February 18, 2013

1302.3854 (Andreas Pospischil et al.)

CMOS-integrated graphene photodetector covering all optical
communication bands
   [PDF]

Andreas Pospischil, Markus Humer, Marco M. Furchi, Romain Guider, Thomas Fromherz, Thomas Mueller
Optical interconnects are becoming attractive alternatives to electrical wiring in ultrahigh-bandwidth intra- and inter-chip communication links. Particularly, the integration with silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology has received considerable interest due to the ability of cost-effective integration of electronics and optics on a single chip. While silicon enables the realization of low-loss optical waveguides and passive components at telecommunication-wavelengths, the integration of another, optically absorbing, material is required for photodetection. Germanium or compound semiconductors are traditionally used for this purpose; their integration with silicon CMOS technology, however, faces major challenges. Recently, graphene - a two-dimensional nanomaterial composed of sp2-bonded carbon atoms - has emerged as a viable alternative for optoelectronic applications, including photodetection. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-wideband CMOS-integrated photodetector based on graphene. We achieve operation over all fiber-optic telecommunication bands (from O- to U-band), beyond the wavelength range of strained germanium photodetectors, whose responsivity is limited by their band gap. Our work complements the recent demonstration of a CMOS-integrated graphene electro-optical modulator, paving the way for carbon-based optical interconnects.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.3854

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