Design and Imaging Application Validation for the Visible Light EOT Photodetectors Based on High-Responsivity CMOS-Compatible Grating-Gate MOSFET

Optoelectronic detectors are critical for converting photon signals into electrical responses, underpinning communication systems, imaging technologies, and environmental monitoring. To address scalability and performance bottlenecks of conventional photodetectors (perovskites, 2D materials, and III–V semiconductors), this work develops a CMOS-compatible grating-gate-MOSFET-based photodetector with extraordinary optical transmission, leveraging finite-difference time-domain simulation for the structural design validation. Four configurations with various interdigital spacings (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 μm) were fabricated by employing a standard 0.8 μm CMOS process. Experiments confirmed exceptional transmission at ∼600 nm visible light, yielding a device responsivity of 2 × 103 A/W, an ultralow noise equivalent power of 1.27 fW/Hz1/2, and a detectivity of 2.54 × 1012 Jones. Additionally, imaging tests with 520 (visible) and 940 nm (infrared) illumination demonstrated its practical application potential. This work provides a scalable and low-cost solution with native silicon integration that overcomes the key limitations of traditional detectors for high-performance optoelectronic systems.