Engineering semiconductor nanowires for photodetection: from visible to terahertz

摘要

Ⅲ-Ⅴ semiconductor nanowires combine the properties of Ⅲ-Ⅴ materials with the unique advantages of the nanowire geometry, allowing efficient room temperature photodetection across a wide range of photon energies, from a few eV down to meV. For example, due to their nanoscale size, these show great promise as sub-wavelength terahertz (THz) detectors for near-field imaging or detecting elements within a highly integrated on-chip THz spectrometer. We discuss recent advances in engineering a number of sensitive photonic devices based on Ⅲ-Ⅴ nanowires, including InAs nanowires with tunable photoresponse, THz polarisers and THz detectors.