Nanowire enabled photodetection

The physics and technology of nanowire (NW) photodetectors offer numerous insights and opportunities for nanoscale optoelectronics, photovoltaics, plasmonics and emerging negative index metamaterials based devices. The successful integration of NW photodetectors on CMOS compatible substrates and various low cost substrates would enhance and facilitate the adaptation of this technology module in the semiconductor foundries. In this chapter, we review the advantages of NW-based photodetectors, current device fabrication and integration schemes, practical strategies, recent device demonstrations and discuss the numerous technical design challenges. We present discussions on (i) low resistance contact and interfaces for NW integration, (ii) high speed design and impedance matching, and (iii) CMOS compatible mass-manufacturable device fabrication. We also offer a brief outlook into the future perspectives on material growth and the future communication, consumer and defense application opportunities for NW photodetectors.