Absorption spectrum observation of quantum well infrared photodetectors by new prism attached attenuated total reflection

Hironori Nishino; Prafulla J. Masalkar; Yusuke Matsukura; Hitoshi Tanaka; Yoshihiro Miyamoto; Toshio Fujii

doi:10.1117/12.391738

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17 July 2000 Absorption spectrum observation of quantum well infrared photodetectors by new prism attached attenuated total reflection

Hironori Nishino, Prafulla J. Masalkar, Yusuke Matsukura, Hitoshi Tanaka, Yoshihiro Miyamoto, Toshio Fujii

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Proceedings Volume 4028, Infrared Detectors and Focal Plane Arrays VI; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.391738
Event: AeroSense 2000, 2000, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

We developed a very simple and useful method for observing the optical absorption due to intersubband transition in quantum wells. This new technique based on attenuated total reflection (ATR) is applied to evaluate epitaxial wafers containing multi quantum wells (MQW), used for quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIP). For the intersubband transition, normal incidence produces only weak absorption because of the quantum selection rules on polarization. ATR has been used to emphasize the intersubband absorption, however, the GaAs substrate including MQW had to be made into a prism. We observed intersubband absorption without such preparation of GaAs substrate by just attaching a Ge prism to it. Attached prism in ATR is normally used for collecting the absorption near the sample surface by utilizing the total reflection at the prism-sample interface. However, we adjusted the angle of incidence to propagate the refracted light into the sample because absorption occurred inside epitaxial layers in the QWIP structure. Using this modified prism attached ATR, we were able to measure the intersubband absorption more clearly than in the case of conventional prism attached ATR. Due to avoid the complicated sample preparation, we could easily compare the absorption of MQW with QWIP device characteristics.

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Hironori Nishino, Prafulla J. Masalkar, Yusuke Matsukura, Hitoshi Tanaka, Yoshihiro Miyamoto, and Toshio Fujii "Absorption spectrum observation of quantum well infrared photodetectors by new prism attached attenuated total reflection", Proc. SPIE 4028, Infrared Detectors and Focal Plane Arrays VI, (17 July 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.391738

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