Two-stack two-color high-strain quantum well infrared photodetector

Meimei Z. Tidrow; JungChi Chiang; Sheng S. Li; Kenneth L. Bacher

doi:10.1117/12.280397

13 August 1997 Two-stack two-color high-strain quantum well infrared photodetector

Meimei Z. Tidrow, JungChi Chiang, Sheng S. Li, Kenneth L. Bacher

Proceedings Volume 3061, Infrared Technology and Applications XXIII; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.280397
Event: AeroSense '97, 1997, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

A very high performance two-stack, two-color, high strain (HS- ) quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) has been demonstrated. The sample was grown on a semi-insulating (100) GaAs by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). It consists of two stacks of MWIR and LWIR QWIPs as the active region with a 100 nm thick highly doped contact layer grown between the two stacks. Each stack is designed to have detection in one of the two atmospheric windows, 3 - 5 micrometer (MWIR) and 8 - 12 micrometer (LWIR), respectively. The MWIR stack consists of 20 periods of 300 angstrom Al_0.38Ga_0.62As barrier and 24 angstrom doped In_0.35Ga_0.65As well sandwiched between two 5 angstrom GaAs, and the LWIR stack is composed of 20 periods of 500 angstrom Al_0.27Ga_0.73As barrier and 55 angstrom GaAs well. In this work, a 35% of indium has been employed in the MWIR-stack which not only shifts the peak wavelength to 4.3 micrometer, but also enhances the responsivity greatly in this wavelength band. This is due to the fact that higher indium concentration in the InGaAs QW reduces the electron effective mass and increases the intersubband absorption. Despite of the large strain induced by the high indium concentration, the device is highly uniform with very low dark current. For the MWIR stack, a peak responsivity of R_p equals 0.65 A/W and D* equals 1.9 by 10¹¹ cm-Hz^1/2/W at 4.3 micrometer, 3 V bias, and 77 K were obtained, while for the LWIR stack, R_p equals 0.55 A/W and D* equals 2.7 by 10¹⁰ cm-Hz^1/2/W at 9.4 micrometer, 2 V bias, and 77 K were obtained using 45 degree light coupling. Normal incidence without grating coupling also has high responsivity with about 50% for the MWIR stack and 40% for the LWIR stack respectively, compared with the 45 degree incidence coupling. The BLIP temperature was found to be 125 K for the MWIR stack with cutoff wavelength of lambda_c equals 4.6 micrometer and 70 K for the LWIR stack with (lambda) _c equals 10 micrometer.

Citation Download Citation

Meimei Z. Tidrow, JungChi Chiang, Sheng S. Li, and Kenneth L. Bacher "Two-stack two-color high-strain quantum well infrared photodetector", Proc. SPIE 3061, Infrared Technology and Applications XXIII, (13 August 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.280397

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