Design and simulation of a low dark current metal/silicon/metal integrated plasmonic detector

Abstract

Silicon-based waveguide plasmon detectors have a great research interest because of CMOS compatibility and integration capability with other plasmonic integrated circuits. In this paper, a balanced metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) integrated plasmonic detector is proposed to isolate the output from dark current and made it suitable for low noise applications. Performance characteristics of the new device are numerically simulated. In a specific bias point (V = 3 V), the output current is estimated to be about 31.8 {\mu}A and responsivity is 0.1288 A/W for a device with 2 {\mu}m2 area. Simulation results for this balanced Plasmon detector demonstrate considerable dark current reduction compared with unbalanced plasmon detectors. Our estimated theoretical I-V characteristic, fits appropriately with experimental curve results reported before.