Plasmon-Enhanced MoS2 Photodetector Enabled by Lithographically Patterned Au Disk Arrays and an h-BN Tunneling Layer

Yinyin Wang

doi:10.6919/ICJE.202603_12(3).0011

Authors

Yinyin Wang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6919/ICJE.202603_12(3).0011

Keywords:

MoS2; Plasmonics; Photodetector; Hot electrons.

Abstract

High-performance visible light photodetection holds significant application value in optical communications, imaging, and sensing. Here, we demonstrate a plasmon-enhanced photodetector based on few-layer MoS₂ integrated with Au disk arrays fabricated by direct writing lithography and a monolayer h-BN tunneling layer. The Au disk arrays (diameter: 1.5 μm, period: 2.5 μm, thickness: 40 nm), fabricated by direct writing lithography,offer excellent scalability and position controllability. The monolayer h-BN serves as a tunneling layer that not only prevents direct contact between Au and MoS₂, suppressing dark current and photoluminescence quenching, but also enables the tunneling of plasmon-generated hot electrons into MoS₂. Benefiting from the synergistic effects of near-field optical enhancement, hot electron tunneling injection, and strain-induced band modulation, the device exhibits significantly improved photoelectric conversion efficiency. Under 635 nm illumination at an ultralow power density of 0.01 mW/cm², the device achieves a responsivity of 1384 A/W and a detectivity of 9.73 × 10¹³ Jones, along with stable and fast photoswitching response featuring rise/fall times of 40 ms/138 ms. Finite-difference time-domain simulations confirm pronounced electric field enhancement at the MoS₂ layer induced by the Au disk arrays. This work provides a feasible design strategy for high-performance and scalable two-dimensional material photodetectors.

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