Photogalvanic effect in the armchair and zigzag photodetectors based on the graphene-like BC3 monolayer

Abstract

The graphene-like BC₃ monolayer has been experimentally prepared. In this paper, based on this BC₃ monolayer, we built its armchair and zigzag photodetectors and studied linear and elliptical photogalvanic effects (PGEs) in these devices. It was found that produced photocurrents in the armchair and zigzag BC₃ photodetectors mainly show cosine and sine relations on double times of linear or elliptical polarized angle, respectively. Moreover, since the decreasing of symmetry from D_6H to C_2v or C_s at the vacancy- and substitution-doping situations, the photocurrents in the armchair and zigzag BC₃ photodetectors increased about 10–100 times, and the photocurrents even may be detected in experiments. Furthermore, the armchair and zigzag BC₃ photodetectors are all polarization-sensitive for their high extinction ratios. In view of that the BC₃ monolayer has been prepared, our work manifested great potential applications of the PGE-driven BC₃ photodetectors in high performance and low energy-consumption optoelectronic and nanoelectronic devices.