High-Performance Photodetectors Based on Semiconducting Graphene Nanoribbons

The inherent zero-band gap nature of graphene and its fast photocarrier recombination rate result in poor optical gain and responsivity when graphene is used as the light absorption medium in photodetectors. Here, semiconducting graphene nanoribbons with a direct bandgap of 1.8 eV are synthesized and employed to construct a vertical heterojunction photodetector. At a bias voltage of −5 V, the photodetector exhibits a responsivity of 1052 A/W, outperforming previous graphene-based heterojunction photodetectors by several orders of magnitude. The achieved detectivity of 3.13 × 10 ¹³ Jones and response time of 310 μs are also among the best values for graphene-based heterojunction photodetectors reported until date. Furthermore, even under zero bias, the photodetector demonstrates a high responsivity and detectivity of 1.04 A/W and 2.45 × 10 ¹² Jones, respectively. The work shows a great potential of graphene nanoribbon-based photodetection technology.