Sensitivity of resonant tunneling diode photodetectors

Abstract

We have studied the sensitivity of AlGaAs/GaAs double barrier resonant tunneling diode photodetectors with an integrated GaInNAs absorption layer for light sensing at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.3 µm for illumination powers from pico to micro Watts. The sensitivity decreases nonlinearly with power.An illumination power increase of seven orders of magnitude leads to a reduction of the photocurrent sensitivity from 5.82 10 A/W to 3.2 A/W. We attribute the nonlinear sensitivity-power dependence to an altered local electrostatic potential due to hole-accumulation that on the one hand tunes the tunneling current, but on the other hand affects the lifetime of photogenerated holes. In particular, the lifetime decreases exponentially with increasing hole-population. The lifetime reduction results from an enhanced electrical field, a rise of the quasi-Fermi level and an increased energy splitting within the triangular potential well. The non-constant sensitivity is a direct result of the non-constant lifetime. Based on these findings, we provide an expression that allows to calculate the sensitivity as a function of illumination power and bias voltage, show a way to model the time-resolved photocurrent, and determine the critical power up to which the resonant tunneling diode photosensor sensitivity can be assumed constant.

Mid-infrared GaSb-based resonant tunneling diode photodetectors for gas sensing applications

“…30 The PVCR presented here is higher as the previous reported PVCR of 2.4 with electron injection from a ternary compound prewell 31 This is attributed to the enhanced Γ-L valley energy separation and effective larger barrier thickness for the electron injection from the quaternary absorption layer. 32 Photocurrent measurements are carried out using three DFB-Lasers with emission wavelengths of 2004 nm, 2330 nm, and 3395 nm that were designed for the detection of CO2, CO, and HCl respectively.…”

Resonant tunnelling diode terahertz sources for broadband wireless communications

“…Such optoelectronic devices include laser diodes, semiconductor optical amplifiers, photo-detectors, and semiconductor electro-refraction and electro-absorption modulators. Particularly, the integration of DBQWs with unipolar photodetectors by embedding the DBQW within or close to the light sensitive region gives rise to a new device known from now as resonant tunneling diode photodetector (RTD-PD) [43][44][45] .…”

Resonant tunneling diode oscillators for optical communications

“…The peak current is around -9.4 mA which occurs at a bias voltage of -1.125 V. As the illumination power level increases, the peak current increases slightly and shifts to a lower voltage. This shift based on the injection of light is due to the built-in electrical field close to the collector barrier which is enhanced due to the accumulation of lightgenerated holes in the collector absorption layer [5]. Frequency response and data transmission experiments were then conducted with this RTD-PD using the experimental setup shown in Figures 4(a) and 4(b), respectively.…”