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High Temperature Infrared Photon Detector Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

C. H. Grein  and
H. Ehrenreich
C. H. Grein
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, M/C 273, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 W. Taylor St. #2236, Chicago IL 60607-7059
H. Ehrenreich
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
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Abstract

The combined effects of suppressing Auger recombination by band structure engineering strained-layer superlattices (SL), suppressing radiative recombination by photon recycling, and suppressing both Auger and radiative recombination with carrier depletion are calculated quantitatively for long-wavelength and mid-wavelength InAs/ InxGa1-xSb SL-based infrared detectors operating at temperatures between 200 and 300K. The results are compared to their HgCdTe counterparts. The SL performance is better in all cases. However, the carrier concentrations required for typical background limited performance (300K, 2π field of view), ranging between about 1 × 1013 and 4 × 1013 cm−3 at 300K in long-wavelength to mid-wavelength SLs, are seen to be impractically low. The carrier concentration in a 11 μm photon detector yielding equivalent performance to an ideal 300K thermal detector is about 1014 cm−3. Large performance enhancement using carrier depletion therefore appears impractical even in optimized SLs.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 484: Symposium F – Infrared Applications of Semiconductors II , 1997 , 191
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

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