  Characteristics improvement of photon/plasmon detectors have been the subject
of several investigations in the area of plasmonic integrated circuits. Among
different suggestions, Silicon-based Metal-Semiconductor-Metal (MSM) waveguides
are one of the most popular structures for implementation of high-quality
photon/plasmon detectors in infrared wavelengths. In this paper, an integrated
Silicon Germanium (SiGe) core MSM plasmon detector is proposed to detect
lambda=1550 nm with internal photoemission mechanism. Performance
characteristics of the new device are simulated with a simplified hydrodynamic
model. In a specific bias point (V=3 V and the incident optical power of 0.31
mW), the output current is 404.3 uA (276 uA detection current and 128.3 uA dark
current), responsivity is 0.89 A/W and the 3-dB electrical bandwidth is 120
GHz. Simulation results for the proposed Plasmon detector, in comparison with
the empirical results of a reported Si-based MSM device, demonstrate
considerable responsivity enhancement.
