Development of Infrared Detectors Using Single Carbon-Nanotube-Based Field-Effect Transistors

Carbon nanotube is a promising material to fabricate high-performance nanoscale-optoelectronic devices owing to its unique 1-D structure. In particular, different types of carbon-nanotube-infrared detectors have been developed. However, most previous reported carbon-nanotube-IR detectors showed poor device characteristics due to limited understanding of their working principles. In this paper, three types of IR detectors were fabricated using carbon-nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFETs) to investigate their performance: 1) symmetric Au-CNT-Au CNTFET IR detector; 2) symmetric Ag-CNT-Ag CNTFET IR detector; and 3) asymmetric Ag-CNT-Au CNTFET IR detector. The theoretical analyses and experimental results have shown that the IR detector using an individual single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT), with asymmetric Ag-CNT-Au CNTFET structure, can suppress dark current and increase photocurrent by electrostatic doping. As a result, an open-circuit voltage of 0.45 V under IR illumination was generated, which is the highest value reported to date for an individual SWCNT-based photodetector. The results reported in this paper have demonstrated that the CNTFET can be used to develop high-performance IR sensors.