Analytical modeling to design the vertically aligned Si-nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor photosensors for direct color sensing with high spectral resolution

In the current work, an analytical model for the design of vertically aligned silicon (Si) nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor based multi-color photodetectors has been developed for the detection of entire visible spectrum with high spectral resolution. The photogeneration phenomena within the nanostructures are analyzed in detail by developing a quantum field model associated with second quantization electron-photon field operators. The non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism is employed to solve the relevant equations. The study shows that the proposed device with specified design of diameter-voltage combinations is capable of detecting 64 spectral bands of the entire visible spectrum (380 nm to700 nm) directly with a very high resolution of 5 nm wavelength. Such direct sensing of each wavelength is observed to be independent of the fluctuations of illumination intensity. The device is designed to obtain a full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) smaller than the spectral resolution (5 nm) for each wavelength of the visible range, which indicates a very high quality digital imaging/sensing method. Such devices may be a potential alternative for the future nanoelectronics based photodevices for superior sensing/imaging applications.