A 5 mm×5 mm mid-wavelength infrared HgCdTe photodiode array with negative luminescence efficiency ∼95%

Lindle, J. R.; Bewley, W. W.; Vurgaftman, I.; Meyer, J. R.; Johnson, J. L.; Thomas, Maikael A.; Piquette, E. C.; Tennant, W. E.

doi:10.1007/s11664-004-0053-6

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…Since then, NL has been observed in a number of IR detector and LED material systems with cutoff wavelengths (l co ) beyond 4 mm, including InSb, 3,6 InSb/ InAlSb heterostructures, 7,8 InAs,9 In(Ga)As(Sb)/ InAsSb(P) heterostructures, 10-18 type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices, 19 and HgCdTe. 4,5,8,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] The best NL device performance to date has been obtained using relatively mature HgCdTe photodiode materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

HgCdTe negative luminescence devices for cold shielding and other applications

Lindle

Bewley

Vurgaftman

et al. 2006

Journal of Elec Materi

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Negative luminescence (NL) refers to the suppression of infrared blackbody emission, and hence an apparent temperature reduction, due to free carrier extraction from a reverse-biased p-n junction. A number of applications are envisioned for NL devices, including cold shielding of background-limited uncooled and cryogenic focal-plane arrays, dynamic nonuniformity correction for ir imaging, and ir scene simulation. High-performance NL devices have recently been demonstrated. For example, a HgCdTe/CdZnTe photodiode with 4.8-mm cutoff wavelength achieved an internal NL efficiency of 95% at room temperature. This means that the blackbody emission was suppressed by a factor of 20 and that the apparent temperature of the device surface decreased by 60 K. The corresponding reverse-bias saturation current density was 0.11 A/cm 2 . Even HgCdTe devices (l co 5 5.3 mm) grown on large-area silicon substrates with substantial lattice mismatch displayed 88% internal NL efficiency and saturation current densities no larger than 1.3 A/cm 2 . These results indicate a clear path toward a negative-luminescence device technology that is efficient, operates at low power, and is inexpensive. INTRODUCTIONThe military sensing community is eagerly anticipating the development of uncooled or minimally cooled thermal or photon infrared (IR) detectors that achieve background-limited performance (BLIP). An uncooled near-BLIP technology would strongly impact a broad spectrum of sensing systems, due to its obvious advantages in terms of size, weight, power, cost, and reliability. While thermal detectors for the long-wavelength ir (LWIR) already operate uncooled, at present their sensitivities tend to be far from BLIP, and fast frame rates can be achieved only by trading further against the sensitivity. Those devices tend to be limited by such factors as the heat capacity and thermal isolation of the absorbing layers. By contrast, the current generation of midwave ir (MWIR) and LWIR photon detectors exhibit BLIP sensitivity, but only at cryogenic temperatures. While the dark currents associated with Auger and radiative recombination processes can be addressed by special nonequilibrium high-operating-temperature 1 and related 2 geometries, 1/f noise and Shockley-Read defects then dominate. These are not fundamental limitations, however, and we expect thermoelectrically cooled, near-BLIP, ir focal-plane arrays (FPAs) to become available within a few years.An important component of the current photon detector technology is the cold shield (CS), which encases the FPA and blocks solid angles falling outside the desired field of view. This is usually an evacuated metal Stirling-cycle refrigerator with a cold inner surface. Today's thermal detectors do not employ cold shielding, since other noise sources are still more important than radiation from outside the scene. However, once near-BLIP operation is feasible for an uncooled FPA (either photon or thermal), the incorporation of a CS becomes essential. Yet, conventional cold shielding is unattractive ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

HgCdTe negative luminescence devices for cold shielding and other applications

Lindle

Bewley

Vurgaftman

et al. 2006

Journal of Elec Materi

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Negative Luminescence

Ashley

Nash

2006

Mid-Infrared Semiconductor Optoelectronics

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HgCdTe negative luminescence devices with high internal and external efficiencies in the midinfrared

Lindle

Bewley

Vurgaftman

et al. 2007

Applied Physics Letters

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The authors report the fabrication and characterization of mid-IR HgCdTe negative luminescence (NL) devices grown on silicon substrates. Sensitive optical modulation measurements of the 5mm square array with ∼5.4μm cutoff and single-layer antireflection (AR) coating yield an internal NL efficiency of 98% at room temperature. This is the highest ever reported, and represents a factor-of-50 suppression of the blackbody emission. The corresponding external NL efficiency of 86% is consistent with the internal efficiency and the spectrally weighted reflectivity of 15%, which could be improved substantially through the incorporation of a state-of-the-art multilayer AR coating.

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A 5 mm×5 mm mid-wavelength infrared HgCdTe photodiode array with negative luminescence efficiency ∼95%

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

HgCdTe negative luminescence devices for cold shielding and other applications

HgCdTe negative luminescence devices for cold shielding and other applications

Negative Luminescence

HgCdTe negative luminescence devices with high internal and external efficiencies in the midinfrared

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