FB1 (Invited)

10:15 AM – 10:45 AM

Graphene and Carbon Nanotube Photonics

Fengnian Xia#, Thomas Mueller, Mathias Steiner, Yu-ming Lin, Marcus Freitag, and Phaedon Avouris
#
fxia@us.ibm.com

www.research.ibm.com/nanoscience

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

Abstract: Graphene and carbon nanotube based where D is the fine structure constant, over a very a broad
photonic devices, including light emitters and high wavelength range9. Multiple graphene layers absorb
bandwidth photodetectors are demonstrated. The additively and the absorption range of the system can be
potential of these truly nanometer scale, 2-dimensional tuned by changing the Fermi energy using an external gate
(graphene) and quasi 1-dimensional (nanotube) carbon field11.
materials in photonics are discussed.
Keywords: graphene, carbon nanotube, and carbon We explore the use of single or few-layer of graphene
photonics. based field-effect-transistors (FET) as photodetectors.
Figure 1 shows a scanning electron micrograph of such a
1. Introduction graphene based FET. The graphene channel is around 0.6
While the performance of silicon electronic devices μm wide by 1.4 μm long. The source and drain metals are
benefits from the device scaling for more than 40 years1, Ti/Pd/Au (0.5/20/20 nm) metal films. The gate SiO2 is about
the same scaling rule does not apply to photonic devices 300 nm thick. The schematics of the device and the
2 photocurrent generation process are shown in the inset.
due to the diffraction of the light and the limited
interaction strength between the light and conventional
Light
photonic materials. Hence, the development of novel Iph
photonic materials is essential for the advancement of the
photonics. Indeed, introduction of silicon into photonics
SiO2
not only greatly reduces the footprint of the device, but
Back gate
also enables the seamless integration of photonics and VG
electronics3-5. Here, we report on photonic devices
realized using carbon based, truly nanometer scale 2-D
and quasi-1D material systems, namely graphene and
carbon nanotube, demonstrating the feasibility and
potential of carbon in photonics.

2. Graphene photodetector Figure 1. Scanning electron micrograph of a graphene FET. Inset: device
Graphene is a single atomic layer 2-dimensional system schematics and photocurrent generation process.

composed solely of carbon atoms arranged in a

hexagonal honeycomb lattice. As a zero bandgap
semiconductor, it has a linear energy dispersion relation
at K point, implying a vanishing effective mass, a high
Fermi velocity (~1/300 of the speed of light), and a huge
intrinsic electrical mobility approaching 200,000 cm2/Vxs
for a free sheet for both electrons and holes6-8. The
photonic properties of graphene are equally remarkable:
the strength of light-carbon interaction within a wide
range of photon energies is 10 to 100 times stronger than
that in conventional semiconductors9-10. A single
graphene layer absorbs through direct interband
transitions a considerable fraction of the light, SD (~2.3%)
Upon light absorption, the generated electron-hole pairs in
graphene would normally recombine on a ps time-scale12-13.
If an external field is applied, the pairs can be separated
and a photocurrent is generated. The same happens in the
presence of an internal field. Such fields have been shown
to be formed near the metal electrode-graphene
interfaces14-15. Here, photocurrent is generated when light is
incident around the metal-graphene interface area of the
graphene FET as show in the inset of Figure 1. In addition,
the photocurrent can be modified by the gate bias since the
internal electric field around the metal-graphene interface
can be modified by the gate bias. Figure 2 depicts the

1
978-1-4244-4403-8/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE 217
external photo-responsivity of such a graphene FET temperatures are shown in Figure 3. From these
based photodetector under 632.8 nm light excitation. A temperature dependent measurements, a bandgap of ~50
maximum responsivity approaching 1 mA/W is obtained meV in these graphene ribbons is estimated. Such a gap
at a positive gate bias of 80 V, due to the formation of a can already be useful for mid-infrared applications. Further
15
graphene p-n junction . Such a photo-responsivity is reduction of ribbon width or introduction of other symmetry
19
very impressive given that only a single layer of atoms breaking schemes may ultimately lead to large enough
(~0.3 nm thick) are involved in light detection. In Fig. 2, bandgap openings for near-infrared photonic applications.
negative photo-responsivity is observed when gate bias -1
10
VG is smaller than 10 V. Negative photoresponse only
indicates the change of the current following direction,

Drain current (PA)

-2
10
which is caused by the flipping of the band-bending
direction when gate bias changes. We also performed Graphene ribbon
-3
10
frequency response measurements on a similar graphene 1 μm D
S
photodetector using a lightwave component analyzer with -4
10
a build-in 1.55 μm excitation source laser. No degradation Drain bias: 10mV
25 K
of photo-response is observed up to 26 GHz light -5 50 K
10
intensity modulation frequencies as shown in the inset of 100 K
Fig. 2, which is limited by the current measurement 300 K
-6
10
system. Such a high bandwidth of the graphene -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
photodetector is due to the high mobility and extremely Gate bias (V)
large carrier saturation velocity (~ 5.5x107 cm/s) in
Figure 3. Current switching in graphene nano-ribbon FET. Inset: Scanning
graphene16. Operation of such photodetectors at
electron micrograph of a graphene nano-ribbon FET.
bandwidths well above 100 GHz is possible.
4. Cavity-controlled light emission at telecom
Photo-responsivity (mA /W)

1.00
wavelengths in carbon nanotubes
Relative photoresponse (dB)

0.75 0 A carbon nanotube can be viewed as being formed by the

0.50 -3 rolling of a piece of graphene ribbon to form a perfect
-6 cylinder. The rolling process is specified by a pair of
0.25
integers (n, m), called the chirality. The nanotubes can be
-9
0.00 0.1 1 10 26
metallic (zero-gap) or semiconducting depending on the
-0.25
Frequency (GHz) chirality20. Light emission induced by current injection in
semiconducting nanotubes resulting from both electron-hole
-0.50 recombination and excitonic recombination has been
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 demonstrated21-23. Furthermore, such emission can be
controlled using optical cavities.
Gate Bias (V)
Figure 2. Graphene FET photo-responsivity as a function of gate bias w/o cavity
Emission intensity (arb.)

(measured using 632.8 nm laser excitation). Inset: Frequency response of w cavity

100
the photoresponse (measured with 1.55 μm excitation).
80

3. Bandgap Engineering in Graphene 60

As a zero bandgap material, graphene can be used in
photodetectors as shown in the section above. However, 40

other photonic functions such as light emission, creating 20

a bandgap in graphene is essential. Here we show that
17-
by cutting this 2-dimensional system into nano-ribbons 0
18 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
, a bandgap can be created due to the lateral
Wavelength (nm)
confinement and good current switching behavior can be
realized in such graphene nano-ribbon based FETs. The Figure 4. Emission spectra of a single carbon nanotube under current
injection with and without optical confinement. Inset: Schematics of the
transfer characteristics of such nano-ribbon FETs with a
nanotube emitter within an optical cavity.
ribbon width of ~15 nm measured at different

2
978-1-4244-4403-8/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE 218
Figure 4 shows the emission spectra of a semiconducting
nanotube with a diameter of ~1.7 nm with and without the
cavity, while the inset of Fig. 4 depicts the schematic view
of the nanotube light emitter within a planar cavity. As
shown in Fig. 4, the emission spectrum of the free-
standing nanotube is much wider than that of the
nanotube within the cavity, which is mainly determined by
24
the cavity Q factor . Integration of nanotubes with high Q
25
cavities such as silicon based nano-cavities may
ultimately lead to high performance, electrically-injected,
zero-threshold nanolasers.
5. Summary
2-dimensional and 1-dimensional carbon materials,
namely graphene and carbon nanotubes, are explored as
potential candidates for photonic applications. Light
emitters and detectors are demonstrated using these
carbon based materials. The interaction of the photons
and these carbon based materials, the properties of
photo-generated carriers, and the transport of the carriers
are fundamentally different from those in conventional III-
V or group IV (mainly Silicon and Germanium) photonic
materials. Novel photonic devices with greatly reduced
footprint and enhanced performance may be realized
using these reduced-dimension carbon materials.
Moreover, complete photonic-electronic integrated
circuits can be realized on the same carbon material
since both graphene and nanotube exhibit excellent
electronic properties and electronic applications using
both graphene and nanotube are being pursued
vigorously20, 26.
6. Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to M. Freitag and Z. Chen for
helpful discussions, to Y. Vlasov, S. Assefa, W. Green, C.
Schow and L. Schares for help with device
measurements, to J. Tsang for Raman measurements,
and to B. Ek and J. Bucchignano for help in technical
assistance. F. X. is indebted to C. Y. Sung for his
encouragement. T. M. acknowledges financial support by
the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
References
1. Frank, D. J. et al. Device Scaling Limits of Si MOSFETs
and Their Application Dependencies. Proceedings of the
IEEE 89, 259-288 (2001).
2. Born, M. & Wolf, E. Principle of optics, Ch. 8, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK (1999).
3. Vlasov, Yu. & McNab, S. Losses in single-mode silicon-on-
insulator strip waveguides and bends. Opt. Express 12,
1622-1631 (2004).
978-1-4244-4403-8/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
4. Xu, Q., Schmidt, B., Pradhan, S. & Lipson, M. Micrometre-
scale silicon electro-optic modulator. Nature 435, 325-327
(2005).
5. Soref, R. The past, present, and future of silicon photonics.
IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 12, 1678-1687 (2006).
6. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Electric field effect in atomically thin
carbon films. Science 306, 666-669 (2004).
7. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Two-dimensional gas of massless
Dirac fermions in graphene. Nature 438, 197-200 (2005).
8. Chen, J. et al. Intrinsic and extrinsic performance limits of
graphene devices on SiO2. Nature Nano. 3, 206-209 (2008).
9. Nair, R. R. et al. Fine structure constant defines visual
transparency of graphene. Science 320, 1308 (2008).
10. Wang, F. et al. Gate-Variable optical transition in graphene.
Science 320, 206-209 (2008).
11. Li, Z. Q. et al. Dirac charge dynamics in graphene by infrared
spectroscopy. Nature Phys. 4, 532-535 (2008).
12. Dawlaty, J. M., Shivaraman, S., Chandrashekhar, M., Rana,
F. & Spencer, M. G. Measurement of ultrafast carrier
dynamics in epitaxial graphene. Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 042116
(2008).
13. Sun, D. et al. Hot Dirac Fermions in Epitaxial Graphene. Phys.
Rev. Lett. 101, 157402 (2008).
14. Lee, E. J. H., Balasubramanian, K., Weitz, R. T., Burghard, M.
& Kern, K. Contact and edge effects in graphene devices.
Nature Nano. 3, 486-490 (2008).
15. Xia, F. et al. Photocurrent imaging and efficient photon
detection in a graphene transistor. Nano Lett. 9, 1039-1044
(2009).
16. Meric, I. et al. Current saturation in zero-bandgap, top-gated
graphene field-effect transistors. Nature Nano. 3, 654-659
(2008).
17. Chen, Z. et al. “"Graphene nano-ribbon electronics," Physica
E 40 (2), 228-232 (2007).
18. Han, M., Ozyilmaz, B., Zhang, Y. & Kim, P. Energy band-gap
engineering of graphene nanoribbons. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98,
206805 (2007).
19. Ni, Z. et al. Uniaxial strain on graphene: Raman spectroscopy
study and band-gap opening. ACS Nano 2, 2301-2305 (2008).
20. Avouris, Ph., Chen, Z. & Perebeinos, V. Carbon-based
electronics. Nature Nano. 2, 605-615 (2007).
21. Misewich, J. A. et al. Electrically induced optical emission from
a carbon nanotube FET. Science 300, 783–786 (2003).
22. Chen, J. et al. Bright infrared emission from electrically
induced excitons in carbon nanotubes. Science 310, 1171–
1174 (2005).
23. Avouris, Ph., Freitag, M. & Perebeinos, V. Carbon-nanotube
photonics and optoelectronics. Nature Photon. 2, 341-350
(2008),
24. Xia, F., Steiner, M., Lin, Y. & Avouris, Ph. A microcavity-
controlled, current-driven, on-chip nanotube emitter at infrared
wavelengths. Nature Nano. 3, 609–613 (2008).
25. Song, B. S., Noda, S., Asano, T. & Akahane, Y. Ultra-high-Q
photonic double-heterostructure nanocavity. Nature Mat. 4,
207–210 (2005).
26. Lin, Y. et al. Operation of graphene transistors at Gigahertz
frequencies. Nano Lett. 9, 422-426 (2009).
3
219