Planar hot-electron photodetection with Tamm plasmons

There is an increasing interest in harvesting photoejected hot-electrons for sensitive photodetectors, which have highly tunable detection wavelengths controlled by structural engineering rather than the classic doped semiconductors. However, the widely employed metallic nanostructures that excite surface plasmons (SPs) to enhance the photoemission of hot-electrons are usually complex with a high fabrication challenge. Here, we present a purely planar hot-electron photodetector based on Tamm plasmons (TPs) by introducing a distributed Bragg reflector integrated with hot-electron collection layers in metal/semiconductor/metal configuration. Results show that the light incidence can be strongly confined in the localized region between the top metal and the adjacent dielectric layer due to the excitation of TP resonance so that more than 87% of the light incidence can be absorbed by the top metal layer. This enables a strong and unidirectional photocurrent and a photoresponsivity that can even be higher than that of the conventional nanostructured system. Moreover, the planar TP system shows a narrow-band resonance with high tunability, good resistance against the change of the incident angle, and the possibility for extended functionalities. The proposed TP-based planar configuration significantly simplifies the conventional SP-based systems and opens the pathway for high-performance, low-cost, hot-electron photodetection