Patent ID: 8829452

Claim:
An avalanche photodiode (APD) electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) detector for visible to near infrared wavelengths, comprising: an EMR absorption region comprising a substantially regular array of silver or aluminum nanoparticles embedded in a matrix material; a voltage biasing element configured to apply a bias voltage to the matrix material such that electrical current is directly generated in the EMR absorption region based on a cooperative plasmon effect in the EMR absorption region when electro-magnetic radiation in the visible to near infrared wavelength range is incident upon the EMR absorption region, where the dominant mechanism for decay in the cooperative plasmon effect is non-radiative; and a charge multiplication region arranged relative to the EMR absorption region to avalanche multiply the electrical current generated in the EMR absorption region, where the array comprises a plurality of detector elements, each detector element comprising respective groups of nanoparticles.