Surface Plasmon Polariton Enhanced Light Emission and Photoresponse in Schottky Diodes

We have investigated the light emission from forward and reverse biased sinusoidally structured Ag/n-GaAs Schottky diodes. These Schottky junctions provide increased light emission due to the radiative decay of excited surface plasmon polaritons, resulting in drastically enhanced quantum efficiency. Conversely surface plasma modes excited at the surface of a semiconductor-metal-insulator structure provide selective coupling of light into the semiconductor with increased quantum efficiency. It is shown, that Schottky diodes can be used as photodetectors selective to polarization, frequency and angle of incident light.