The digital alloy (DA) growth technique has been widely reported to implement band structure engineering for deterministic optical and electronic properties and to overcome growth limitations imposed by miscibility gaps. Random alloy (RA) InGaAs lattice-matched to InP with a bandgap of 0.74 eV is widely used as the absorption material for photodetectors in the short-wavelength infrared spectral range. In this work, the InGaAs is grown on InP substrates as digital alloy, short-period InAs/GaAs superlattices, with six monolayer periodic thickness to extend its cut-off wavelength. The effective extension of the absorption spectral range makes DA InGaAs a promising candidate for absorption at longer wavelengths than the cutoff of RA InGaAs, motivating the study of the optical characteristics of this material system. Variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements were carried out for both DA and RA InGaAs samples from 193 nm to the cut-off wavelength. After the multi-layer model building, the optical constants were extracted via the Kramers-Kronig consistent B-Spline fitting method. The results can be used to design new optoelectronic devices. The absorption coefficient at 2 μm of six monolayer DA InGaAs was found to be 398 cm-1. The extracted optical constants of RA InGaAs were compared with the published values, and a good agreement was obtained, corroborating the effectiveness of extracting optical constants via ellipsometry for the InGaAs material system. These optical constants are beneficial for the future utilization of DA InGaAs in optoelectronic devices with extended spectral response.
A scalable, low cost, low power, and small footprint uncooled mid-wave infrared (MWIR) sensing technology capable of measuring thermal dynamics with high spatial resolution can be of great benefit to space and satellite applications such as remote sensing and earth observation. Conventional photodetectors designed to absorb MWIR band wavelengths have often been based on HgCdTe material and typically require cooling. However, through integration of bilayer graphene functioning as a high mobility channel with HgCdTe material in photodetectors, higher performance detection over the 2-5 μm MWIR band may be enabled and facilitated primarily by thus limiting recombination of photogenerated carriers in these detectors. This high performance MWIR band detector technology is being developed and tested for NASA Earth Science, defense, and commercial applications. Graphene bilayers on Si/SiO2 substrates are doped with boron using a spin-on dopant (SOD) process and then transferred onto HgCdTe substrates for enhanced mobility photodetection applications. Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and secondary-ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) were utilized for analysis of dopant levels and structural properties of the graphene throughout various stages of the development process to characterize the p-doped graphene following doping and transfer. The enhanced performance and functional capabilities of the room-temperature operating graphene-based HgCdTe MWIR detectors and arrays are thereby demonstrated through modeling, material development and characterization, and device optimization.
Many III-V digital alloy avalanche photodiodes have experimentally demonstrated very low excess noise. The presence of minigaps and enhanced valence band effective mass leads to the enhanced performance. Using first principle calculations and environment-dependent tight binding model we study the correlation of these properties with material parameters like stress. Furthermore, using NEGF formalism we study how these minigaps and mass enhancement impact the electron tunneling and phonon scattering processes in digital alloys. Based on our calculations, we propose some empirical inequalities for quantifying the effectiveness of such minigaps in making the device unipolar and thus high gain.
Graphene-HgCdTe heterostructure based mid wave IR (MWIR) detectors are being designed for NASA Earth Science applications. Combining Density Functional Theory (DFT) based calculations of the bandstructure with carrier generation and transport model of this detector, we study the essential physics of this novel detector design and project its performance. Combining the best of both these materials can yield high performance and superior detection capabilities.
KEYWORDS: Systems modeling, Avalanche photodetectors, Avalanche photodiodes, Telecommunications, Monte Carlo methods, Instrument modeling, Internet, Photonic devices, Electronic components, Sensing systems
Some III-V digital alloy avalanche photodiodes demonstrate very low excess noise making them suitable for single photon detection applications. This behavior is attributed to the presence of minigaps in the valence band and high hole effective mass which reduce hole impact ionization. In this work, we present a physics based SPICE compatible compact model for these low noise avalanche photodiodes built from parameters extracted from Environment-Dependent Tight Binding model, that is calibrated to ab-initio Density Functional Theory, and Monte Carlo methods. Using this approach, we can accurately capture the physical characteristics of APDs in integrated photonics circuit simulation.
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