Ferroelectric-gated highly sensitive InGaAs nanowire near-infrared photodetectors

InGaAs nanowires (NWs) show exceptional potential in near-infrared photodetection due to their excellent optoelectronic properties. However, the high intrinsic carrier concentration of the InGaAs NW and the ionization scattering caused by surface defect states result in a high dark current, which degrades the photodetection performance. Here, we prepared an InGaAs NW field-effect transistor modulated by ferroelectric polymer P(VDF-TrFE), where the non-volatile ultra-high electrostatic field from polarization of the P(VDF-TrFE) film modulates the carrier distribution and energy band structure inside the NW. When the P(VDF-TrFE) film is in a negative polarization state, the electrostatic field depletes the carriers in the NW channel, remarkably suppressing the dark current by over two orders of magnitude. Consequently, our single InGaAs NW photodetector achieves both remarkable responsivity (R) of 1.1 × 103 A W−1 and specific detectivity (D*) of 7.5 × 1012 Jones at the optical communication wavelength, significantly exceeding the commercial InGaAs and the nanowire-based photodetector. Moreover, the suppressed dark current enhances the polarization-sensitive detection capability, increasing the polarization ratio from 1.3 to 3.6. This enables the application of our device to polarization-sensitive infrared imaging. Our work demonstrates the value of ferroelectric polymer modulation for low-dimensional, high-performance infrared photodetectors.