Travis J. Anderson 1, Karl D. Hobart 1, Jordan D. Greenlee 1, David I. Shahin 2, Andrew D. Koehler 1, Marko J. Tradjer 1, Eugene A. Imhoff 1, Rachel L. Myers-Ward 1, Aris Christou 2, and Francis J. Kub 1
1Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave SW, Washington, DC 20375, USA
2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Abstract:
There has been significant research on graphene as a sensor owing to the inherent high sensitivity and surface area associated with twodimensional
(2D) materials. Often, the ability of graphene to form heterojunctions with wide-bandgap semiconductors is overlooked. In this study,
we present a detector based on an epitaxial graphene/SiC heterojunction, exploiting the 2D nature of graphene to minimize absorption losses for
high-efficiency sensing while simultaneously taking advantage of the epitaxial p–n junction to achieve low reverse leakage. We measured a
quantum efficiency above 80% at 4 eV using a graphene/SiC p–n heterojunction with a dark current <1nA/cm2.