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arXiv · 1609.02095

Mid-infrared time-resolved photoconduction in black phosphorus

Ryan J. Suess·Edward Leong·Joseph L. Garrett·Tong Zhou·Reza Salem·Jeremy N. Munday·Thomas E. Murphy·Martin Mittendorff
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Abstract

Black phosphorus has attracted interest as a material for use in optoelectronic devices due to many favorable properties such as a high carrier mobility, field-effect, and a direct bandgap that can range from 0.3 eV in its bulk crystalline form to 2 eV for a single atomic layer. The low bandgap energy for bulk black phosphorus allows for direct transition photoabsorption that enables detection of light out to mid-infrared frequencies. In this work we characterize the room temperature optical response of a black phosphorus photoconductive detector at wavelengths ranging from 1.56 $μ$m to 3.75 $μ$m. Pulsed autocorrelation measurements in the near-infrared regime reveal a strong, sub-linear photocurrent nonlinearity with a response time of 1 ns, indicating that gigahertz electrical bandwidth is feasible. Time resolved photoconduction measurements covering near- and mid-infrared frequencies show a fast 65 ps rise time, followed by a carrier relaxation with a time scale that matches the intrinsic limit determined by autocorrelation. The sublinear photoresponse is shown to be caused by a reduction in the carrier relaxation time as more energy is absorbed in the black phosphorus flake and is well described by a carrier recombination model that is nonlinear with excess carrier density. The device exhibits a measured noise-equivalent power of 530 pW/$\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ which is the expected value for Johnson noise limited performance. The fast and sensitive room temperature photoresponse demonstrates that black phosphorus is a promising new material for mid-infrared optoelectronics.

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Ryan J. Suess, Edward Leong, Joseph L. Garrett, Tong Zhou, Reza Salem, Jeremy N. Munday, Thomas E. Murphy, Martin Mittendorff. 2016-09-07. Mid-infrared time-resolved photoconduction in black phosphorus. https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583%2F3%2F4%2F041006

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