Direct On-Chip Optical Plasmon Detection with an Atomically Thin Semiconductor

The determination to develop fast, efficient devices has led to vast studies on photonic circuits but it is difficult to shrink these circuits below the diffraction limit of light. However, the coupling between surface plasmon polaritons and nanostructures in the near-field shows promise in developing next-generation integrated circuitry. In this work, we demonstrate the potential for integrating nanoplasmonic-based light guides with atomically thin materials for on-chip near-field plasmon detection. Specifically, we show near-field electrical detection of silver nanowire plasmons with the atomically thin semiconductor molybdenum disulfide. Unlike graphene, atomically thin semiconductors such as molybdenum disulfide exhibit a bandgap that lends itself for the excitation and detection of plasmons. Our fully integrated plasmon detector exhibits plasmon responsivities of similar to 55 mA/W that corresponds to highly efficient plasmon detection (similar to 0.5 electrons per plasmon).