Universal ultrafast detector for short optical pulses based on graphene

Opt Express. 2015 Nov 2;23(22):28728-35. doi: 10.1364/OE.23.028728.

Abstract

Graphene has unique optical and electronic properties that make it attractive as an active material for broadband ultrafast detection. We present here a graphene-based detector that shows 40-picosecond electrical rise time over a spectral range that spans nearly three orders of magnitude, from the visible to the far-infrared. The detector employs a large area graphene active region with interdigitated electrodes that are connected to a log-periodic antenna to improve the long-wavelength collection efficiency, and a silicon carbide substrate that is transparent throughout the visible regime. The detector exhibits a noise-equivalent power of approximately 100 µW·Hz(-½) and is characterized at wavelengths from 780 nm to 500 µm.