Photodetectors with high bandwidth and internal gain are required to detect highly attenuated optical signals for defense
application and long distance communication. IR avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are best suited for this purpose due to
their internal gain-bandwidth characteristics coupled with long range data transmission capability. For the past two
decades, HgCdTe has been the most successful material for infrared photodetector applications. Recent advances in
epitaxial growth techniques made possible the growth of advanced HgCdTe APD structures, but to the best of our
knowledge all are grown on expensive substrates (e.g. CdZnTe, CdTe). We report for the first time HgCdTe-based
MWIR (4.5 μm) p-i-n APD grown on Si substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The devices were fabricated by
365nm UV photolithography and wet-etching technique. The diode had a junction area of 300μm diameter. The R0A of
the diode was 3 x 106 Ω-cm2 at 77K. Multiplication gains of 800 were measured at a reverse bias of 10 V in the linear
operation regime. The gain increased exponentially as the reverse bias was increased, indicating that only one carrier is
responsible for the impact ionization. Temperature dependence of the multiplication gain and of the breakdown voltage
further confirms that avalanche multiplication dominates high reverse bias I-V characteristics.
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