Hydrodynamic Analysis and Responsivity Improvement of a Metal/Semiconductor/Metal Plasmonic Detector

Characteristic improvements of photon/plasmon detectors have been the subject of several investigations in the area of plasmonic integrated circuits. Among different suggestions, silicon-based metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) waveguides are one of the most popular structures for the implementation of high-quality photon/plasmon detectors in infrared wavelengths. In this paper, an integrated silicon-germanium (SiGe) core MSM plasmon detector is proposed to detect λ = 1550 nm with internal photoemission mechanism. Performance characteristics of the new sub-micron device are simulated with a simplified hydrodynamic model. In a specific bias point (V = 3 V and the incident optical power of 0.31 mW), the output current is 404.3 μA (276 μA detection current and 128.3 μA dark current), responsivity is 0.89 A/W, and the 3-dB electrical bandwidth is 120 GHz. Simulation results for the proposed plasmon detector, in comparison with the empirical results of a reported Si-based MSM device, demonstrate considerable responsivity enhancement.

     

Modulation–Frequency Analysis of an Electrically Pumped Plasmonic Amplifier

Frequency of variations of surface plasmon intensity at the input of a plasmonic amplifier is called modulation–frequency. High modulation–frequency behavior of a Schottky junction-based plasmonic amplifier has been in the focus of this paper. Both small signal and large signal conditions have been considered. In small signal condition, an analytical solution of the rate equations of the electrons and photons has been presented which its results are in accordance with the simulation results of a harmonic balance method. For an amplifier of 100 μm length, the small signal gain has been 14.62 dB from both methods. Large signal behavior has been described by IIP2 and IIP3 in a two tone test which has been implemented by the harmonic balance method. IIP2 and IIP3 of the plasmonic amplifier of this work at 1 GHz are –21.2 and –19.95 dBm, respectively, and their values increase with frequency.