Room-temperature mid-infrared photodetector in all-carbon graphene nanoribbon-C_60 hybrid nanostructure

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Graphene has emerged as a promising candidate for optoelectronic applications due to its broadband absorption and ultrafast carrier mobility. However, its prominent disadvantages, i.e., the zero bandgap and ultrafast carrier lifetime, limit its usage in optoelectronic applications. Although patterning graphene into nanoribbons is an effective strategy to open a bandgap, it still remains a challenge to reduce the surface and edge scattering and recombination of the photoexcited carriers. Here, we fabricated an all-carbon graphene nanoribbon-C60 hybrid nanostructure that is able to achieve a high photoresponsivity of 0.4 A/W under mid-infrared laser illumination at room temperature. Such a high performance is achieved through the high electron trapping efficiency of the C60 film as deposited onto 10 nm wide graphene nanoribbons. This all-carbon hybrid photodetector paves the way toward achieving flexible and broadband photodetectors for various applications such as imaging, remote optical sensing, and infrared camera sensors.