Schottky barrier photovoltaic detectors based on Si-doped AlxGa1-xN (0 ≤ × ≤ 0.22) have been fabricated and characterized. Samples were grown on basal plane sapphire by LP-MOVPE. Schottky contacts were made with Au. Responsivities are independent of the diode size and of the incident power in the range measured (10mW/m2 to 2KW/m2). The spectral response shows an abrupt cutoff that shifts linearly to higher energy with increasing Al content. A visible rejection of 3 to 4 orders of magnitude is observed in AlxGa1-xN Schottky photodiodes. Device time response is RC-limited, and a minimum decay time as short as 15ns have been estimated in unbiased Al0.22Ga0.28N diodes. This time response can be further reduced by reverse biasing.

In this work high gain GaN photoconductive UV detectors have been fabricated and characterized, and a novel gain mechanism, dominant in these detectors, is described. DC responsivities higher than 103A/W have been measured for an incident power of lW/m2 at room temperature. The photoconductive gain depends directly on the bias voltage and scales with incident power as P−k (k ≈ 0.9) for more than five decades. A decrease of both gain and k parameter with temperature has also been observed. As a consequence of the slow non-exponential transient response, AC gain measurements result in lower values for gain and k parameter, which are frequency dependent. The high responsivity, non-linear behavior and slow non-exponential transient response, are all modeled taking into account a modulation mechanism of the layer conductive volume. Such spatial modulation is due to the photovoltaic response of the potential barriers related to the surface and charged dislocations arrays.