Jian-An Huang, Lin-Bao Luo*

Abstract: Plasmonic nanostructures can achieve sub-diffraction-limit light confinement with enhanced electric field. By taking advantage of the light confinement effect, various plasmonic photodetectors that combine low-dimensional (LD) semiconductor structures and plasmonic materials have recently demonstrated excellent plasmon-enhanced device performance and attracted huge research interest. In this review, we will briefly survey the state-of-the-art progresses in the development of various LD photodetectors with different plasmonic structures, in order to provide a clear picture of related fabrication methods leading to maximized plasmonic enhancement. We start by introducing fundamentals of localized surface plasmon resonance and plasmonic hot electrons. This is followed by summarization of some prototype LD photodetectors enhanced by metal NPs including noble metal NPs, poor metal NPs, and some plasmonic doped-semiconductor NPs. Meanwhile, we also highlight the recent achievement in the newly developed LD photodetectors propelled by the plasmonic hot carriers. Finally, some challenges and issues that need to be resolved in this field are proposed.