Room Temperature Graphene Light Detector

Even better we are heading for simple eye glasses with a range of spectrum conversion technology that allows the user to shift from spectral range to range as he sees fit.  This leaves the eyeball alone while opening up a greater range of sensing options.  As posted before, I suspect the unusual eyes reported among the alien Greys are clearly artificial and surely support an expansion of sensing capability.

Thus we are now discovering comparable technology.

Add in a natural virtual screen and you can opt to see a ten inch screen fixed in front of your eyes at the best range.  That is something that we will have a lot sooner than imagined as well.

Room Temperature graphene light detector could enable contacts for seeing infrared, ultraviolet and visible light spectrum

MARCH 18, 2014

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/03/room-temperature-graphene-light.html

The first room-temperature light detector that can sense the full infrared spectrum has the potential to put heat vision technology into a contact lens.

Unlike comparable mid- and far-infrared detectors currently on the market, the detector developed by University of Michigan engineering researchers doesn't need bulky cooling equipment to work.

"We can make the entire design super-thin," said Zhaohui Zhong, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science. "It can be stacked on a contact lens or integrated with a cell phone."

Infrared light starts at wavelengths just longer than those of visible red light and stretches to wavelengths up to a millimeter long. Infrared vision may be best known for spotting people and animals in the dark and heat leaks in houses, but it can also help doctors monitor blood flow, identify chemicals in the environment and allow art historians to see Paul Gauguin's sketches under layers of paint.

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Graphene double-layer heterostructure photodetectors

Nature Nanotechnology - Graphene photodetectors with ultra-broadband and high responsivity at room temperature

Unlike the visible spectrum, which conventional cameras capture with a single chip, infrared imaging requires a combination of technologies to see near-, mid- and far-infrared radiation all at once. Still more challenging, the mid-infrared and far-infrared sensors typically need to be at very cold temperatures.

Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, could sense the whole infrared spectrum—plus visible and ultraviolet light. But until now, it hasn't been viable for infrared detection because it can't capture enough light to generate a detectable electrical signal. With one-atom thickness, it only absorbs about 2.3 percent of the light that hits it. If the light can't produce an electrical signal, graphene can't be used as a sensor.

To make the device, they put an insulating barrier layer between two graphene sheets. The bottom layer had a current running through it. When light hit the top layer, it freed electrons, creating positively charged holes. Then, the electrons used a quantum mechanical trick to slip through the barrier and into the bottom layer of graphene.

The positively charged holes, left behind in the top layer, produced an electric field that affected the flow of electricity through the bottom layer. By measuring the change in current, the team could deduce the brightness of the light hitting the graphene. The new approach allowed the sensitivity of a room-temperature graphene device to compete with that of cooled mid-infrared detectors for the first time.

The device is already smaller than a pinky nail and is easily scaled down. Zhong suggests arrays of them as infrared cameras.

"If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision," Zhong said. "It provides you another way of interacting with your environment."

While full-spectrum infrared detection is likely to find application in military and scientific technologies, the question for the general tech market may soon be, "Do we want to see in infrared?"

ABSTRACT

The ability to detect light over a broad spectral range is central to several technological applications in imaging, sensing, spectroscopy and communication. Graphene is a promising candidate material for ultra-broadband photodetectors, as its absorption spectrum covers the entire ultraviolet to far-infrared range. However, the responsivity of graphene-based photodetectors has so far been limited to tens of mA W−1 due to the small optical absorption of a monolayer of carbon atoms. Integration of colloidal quantum dots in the light absorption layer can improve the responsivity of graphene photodetectors to ~1 × 10^7 A W−1, but the spectral range of photodetection is reduced because light absorption occurs in the quantum dots. Here, we report an ultra-broadband photodetector design based on a graphene double-layer heterostructure. The detector is a phototransistor consisting of a pair of stacked graphene monolayers (top layer, gate; bottom layer, channel) separated by a thin tunnel barrier. Under optical illumination, photoexcited hot carriers generated in the top layer tunnel into the bottom layer, leading to a charge build-up on the gate and a strong photogating effect on the channel conductance. The devices demonstrated room-temperature photodetection from the visible to the mid-infrared range, with mid-infrared responsivity higher than 1 A W−1, as required by most applications. These results address key challenges for broadband infrared detectors, and are promising for the development of graphene-based hot-carrier optoelectronic applications.