Chalcogenide-Based Narrowband Photodetectors for Imaging and Light Communication

Chalcogenide-based semiconductors have recently emerged as promising candidates for optoelectronic applications, mainly benefiting from their facile and low-cost processability, chemical versatility, and tunable optoelectronic properties. Despite the recent success of chalcogenide-based thin-film photovoltaics, they have been barely leveraged in photodetection, mainly due to the complicated charge transport related to the trap states. In addition, most of the chalcogenide photodetectors are reported for broadband, visible photodetection, which is facile but lacks of impact for real applications. However, it is also possible to modulate the charge carrier dynamics of chalcogenide-based materials, and devise novel devices, which can possess extra compelling features. These possibilities provide strong incentives for a detailed study on the chalcogenides-based narrowband photodetectors, which are achieved by a filterless, charge collection narrowing strategy. The optimized narrowband photodetectors also exhibit extremely fast-response (approximate to 240 ns), relatively low dark current and noise, large linear dynamic range, and most importantly tunable spectral discrimination covering the whole range from UV to NIR. These devices also demonstrate great potential for imaging and communication.

Automated summary

Chalcogenide-based semiconductors have the potential to be excellent candidates for optoelectronics due to their low-cost processability, chemical versatility, and tuneable optoelectronic properties. However, their use in photodetection has been limited due to complicated charge transport associated with trap states. By modulating the charge carrier dynamics and employing a filterless, charge collection narrowing strategy, narrowband photodetectors based on chalcogenides have been developed. These devices exhibit extremely fast response times, low dark current and noise, large linear dynamic range, and tunable spectral discrimination from UV to NIR, making them highly promising for imaging and communication applications.