Ultrascaled Germanium Nanowires for Highly Sensitive Photodetection at the Quantum Ballistic Limit.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29995430.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01845.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
We report an experimental study on quasi-one-dimensional Al-Ge-Al nanowire (NW) heterostructures featuring unmatched photoconductive gains exceeding 10<sup>7</sup> and responsivities as high as 10 A/μW in the visible wavelength regime. Our observations are attributed to the presence of GeO <sub>x</sub> related hole-trapping states at the NW surface and can be described by a photogating effect in accordance with previous studies on low-dimensional nanostructures. Utilizing an ultrascaled photodetector device operating in the quantum ballistic transport regime at room temperature we demonstrate for the first time that individual current channels can be addressed directly by laser irradiation. The resulting quantization of the photocurrent represents the ultimate limit of photodetectors, allowing for advanced concepts including highly resolved imaging, light effect transistors and single photon detectors with practically zero off-state current.