Large responsivity of graphene radiation detectors with thermoelectric readout

Abstract

Simple estimations show that the thermoelectric readout in graphene radiation detectors can be extremely effective even for graphene with modest charge-carrier mobility ~1000 cm^2/(Vs). The detector responsivity depends mostly on the residual charge-carrier density and split-gate spacing and can reach competitive values of ~10^3 - 10^4 V/W at room temperature. The optimum characteristics depend on a trade-off between the responsivity and the total device resistance. Finding out the key parameters and their roles allows for simple detectors and their arrays, with high responsivity and sufficiently low resistance matching that of the radiation-receiving antenna structures.