Digital Alloy Staircase Avalanche Photodetectors With Tunneling-Enhanced Gain

We report digital alloy Al_{x}In_{1-x}As_{y}Sb_{1-y}/GaSb staircase avalanche photodiodes (APDs) that operate using carrier-trapping induced tunneling gain. A model describing carrier injection and escape from non-square quantum wells is presented to help explain and quantify the physics of carrier...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of selected topics in quantum electronics 2022-03, Vol.28 (2: Optical Detectors), p.1-13
Main Authors: March, Stephen D., H. Jones, Andrew, Muhowski, Aaron J., Maddox, Scott J., Ren, Min, Bank, Seth R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Avalanche diodes
Avalanche photodiodes
Carrier injection
Digital alloys
Electron traps
Impact ionization
Performance evaluation
photodetector
Photodiode
Photodiodes
Quantum wells
staircase avalanche photodiode
Thermionic emission
Trapping
Tunneling
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Summary:We report digital alloy Al_{x}In_{1-x}As_{y}Sb_{1-y}/GaSb staircase avalanche photodiodes (APDs) that operate using carrier-trapping induced tunneling gain. A model describing carrier injection and escape from non-square quantum wells is presented to help explain and quantify the physics of carrier trapping in staircase APD step regions. We show experimental electrical and optical data demonstrating carrier trapping to corroborate this model. Furthermore, we derive electrostatic parameters that should be considered when designing AlInAsSb staircase APDs with low-noise and deterministic gain scaling that mitigate the deleterious effects of carrier trapping and tunneling in the staircase step regions.
ISSN:1077-260X
1558-4542
DOI:10.1109/JSTQE.2021.3131275