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.