Development of quantum well infrared photodetectors in France

Standard GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) are now well established for LWIR detection. The main advantage of this technology is the duality with the technology of commercial GaAs devices. The second advantage widely claimed for QWIPs is the so-called band-gap engineering, all...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infrared physics & technology 2001-06, Vol.42 (3), p.291-300
Main Authors: Bois, P, Costard, E, Marcadet, X, Herniou, E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Bolometer
infrared, submillimeter wave, microwave and radiowave receivers and detectors
Bolometers
infrared, submillimeter wave, microwave, and radiowave receivers and detectors
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Focal plane array
Infrared, submillimeter wave, microwave and radiowave instruments, equipment and techniques
Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy
Long wavelength infrared range
Optoelectronic devices
Photodetectors (including infrared and CCD detectors)
Physics
Quantum well infrared photodetector
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Skimming function
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Standard GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) are now well established for LWIR detection. The main advantage of this technology is the duality with the technology of commercial GaAs devices. The second advantage widely claimed for QWIPs is the so-called band-gap engineering, allowing the custom design of the quantum structure to fulfill the requirements of specific applications such as multispectral detection. QWIPs are close to being optimized. The understanding of detection mechanisms has led to high performance QWIPs working at high temperature (above 77 K). However, as with all quantum detectors, the operating temperature of QWIPs is limited by the thermal current. A new skimmed architecture accommodating this offset has already been demonstrated. The optimization of a skimmed structure requires the modeling procedures and the process, to be adapted. We present the current status of QWIPs in France, including the latest performances achieved with both standard and skimmed architectures. We illustrate the development of our QWIPs by recent results on FPAs.
ISSN:1350-4495
1879-0275
DOI:10.1016/S1350-4495(01)00087-1