A novel plasmonic metal–semiconductor–insulator–metal (MSIM) color sensor compatible with CMOS technology

Abstract

Color detection is one of the top interests in both biological and industrial applications. Specifically, the Determination of the light wave characteristics is vital in photonic technology. One of the features in the color sense that should be found out is its wavelength or color. In this work, we propose a structure that can be used to detect RGB colors separately in an efficient way. The proposed detector consists of the plasmonic filter sensing desired wavelength (red, green, and blue) and the PN diode to convert the received photons to the electrical current. At the input intensity of 1 mW × cm−2, the current density for blue, green, and red colors are 27, 35, and 48 µA × cm−2, respectively. It is shown that the intensities needed to obtain the current densities of 0.1 µA × cm−2 are 3.94, 2.98, and 2.25 µW × cm−2 for the blue, green, and red spectra respectively. It should mention that by using high-precision photodetector structures such as PIN diode, the minimum detectable level can be decreased. Simple adjusting for desired wavelength and linear operation for different input intensities are the characteristics of the designed structure. This detector is compatible with CMOS technology and can be easily utilized in numerous applications, such as charge-coupled devices, displays, and cameras.