The project entitled “FOTONICS - Fabrication and Optimization of the broadband phoTodetectOr based oN topologICal insulator and Silicon” coordinated by Prof. Paola Castrucci, has been funded by the call “Progetti di Gruppi di Ricerca 2020” POR FESR Lazio 2014-2020. Grant: 143.397,93 €
The photodetectors operating at low voltages, in the spectral band from near ultraviolet to near infrared, ultra-fast (10ns) and highly sensitive, find applications in many areas, from Aerospace to Security, Cultural Heritage and the Green Economy. However, on the market such photodetectors, obtained by superimposing a Si-based and a InGaAs-based photodetector, have a response in the μs range and are expensive due to the presence of InGaAs. FOTONICS changes the paradigm and aims to create and optimize a photodetector based on the ultra-fast Bi2Se3/Si heterojunction, operating at low voltage from ultraviolet to infrared, with sensitivity ≥1A / W and cheaper than those on the market. FOTONICS will exploit the properties of silicon and the innovative properties of Bi2Se3 nanometric films that absorb radiation from ultraviolet to infrared and exhibit a very high surface mobility. The films of Bi2Se3 are in fact topological insulators or semiconductor materials with an energy gap between 0.3 and 0.8 eV which present on the surface electronic bands with linear dispersion forming Dirac cones, similar to graphene.
FOTONICS will be developed by a collaboration between a group of the Physics Department of the University of Roma Tor Vergata (Prof. Paola Castrucci, Dr. Matteo Salvato, Prof. Maurizio De Crescenzi, Prof. Claudio Goletti) (Home - University of Roma Tor Vergata; FOTONICS: a POR FESR Lazio 2014-2020 funded project to develop a broadband photodetector ) and the ESFL group of the Institute of Structure of Matter of the CNR represented by Dr. Daniele Catone, Dr. Stefano Turchini and Dr. Patrick O 'Keefee (Home (cnr.it); FOTONICS - Fabrication and Optimization of the broadband phoTodetectOr based oN topologICal insulator and Silicon).
