Photodetecting Heterostructures from Graphene and Encapsulated Colloidal Quantum Dot Films

Heterostructure devices consisting of graphene and colloidal quantum dots (QDs) have been remarkably successful as photodetectors and have opened the door to technological applications based on the combination of these low-dimensional materials. This work explores the photodetection properties of a heterostructure consisting of a graphene field effect transistor covered by a film of silica-encapsulated colloidal QDs. Defects at the surface of the silica shell trap optically excited charge carriers, which simultaneously enables photodetection via two mechanisms: photogating, resulting in a net p-doping of the device, and Coulombic scattering of charge carriers in the graphene, producing an overall decrease in the current magnitude.