KEYWORDS: Mercury cadmium telluride, Dark current, Signal to noise ratio, Avalanche photodetectors, Passivation, Fabrication, Etching, Design and modelling, Mid-IR
Mid-Wavelength Infrared (MWIR) HgCdTe electron-initiated avalanche photodiodes (e-APDs) have presented excellent performances to resolve and count photons. Aiming at low flux, the Readout Integrated Circuit (ROIC) noise can be extremely reduced by certain device gain, and very low excess noise of HgCdTe e-APDs makes opportunity for noise equivalent photon (NEPh) to be one. Therefore, the main issue for Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of HgCdTe APD is Gain Normalized Dark Current Density (GNDCD) at high reverse bias. In this work, the electric field distribution is optimized by designing the mesa device structure to suppress the tunneling current at high operating voltage. Furthermore, new combining dry/wet etching technology and passivation technology based on Plasma Atomic Enhanced Layer Deposition (PEALD) were used to reduce surface leakage current. Finally, 20 μm pitch 128×128 array HgCdTe APDs for cut-off wavelengths 4.32 μm @80K corresponding to compositions xcd 0.326 were fabricated, the measured GNDCD of test unit is about 1.5~50×10-9 A/cm2 at 0~13V
HgCdTe has been shown to be the first semiconductor exhibiting single-carrier multiplication in short-wavelength, medium-wavelength, long-wavelength avalanche photodiodes detectors for cut-off wavelengths from 1.3 µm to 11 µm corresponding to compositions xcd from 0.7 to 0.2, which has the remarkable characteristics of high gain, high bandwidth and almost no excess noise. These results have opened a new horizon in photon starved and high-speed applications, such as active imaging and free space optical communications. In this paper, we report the latest results at SITP of HgCdTe eFAPDs using LPE-grown absorption layers in the SW and MW wavelength bands. The gain of single element short-wavelength HgCdTe APD for 2.57 μm cut-off wavelength is about 100 at 25V reverse bias, and GNDCD is about 1.47×10- 7A/cm2 at gain of 100 at 130K. For MW HgCdTe APDs, increase the P region doping concentration will reduce the overall dark current density and eliminate sudden rise of dark current at large bias and high temperature, and lower Cd composition could be a trade-off way for GNDCD suppression. 50 μm pitch 128×128 array HgCdTe APDs for cut-off wavelengths 4.88 µm corresponding to compositions xcd 0.307 were fabricated, whose GNDCD is less than 1×10-7A/cm2 at 8V reverse bias, gain is over 1000 at 11V reverse bias. A 50 μm pitch 128×128 array HgCdTe APDs with xcd=0.29 was manufactured, whose gain reaches 1570 at 9.8V reverse bias, the average excess noise factor is 1.25 at average gain of 133, noise equivalent photon is about 12 at average gain of 113. By thinning the absorption region thickness, the response bandwidth of Hg0.79Cd0.31Te APD reaches 635MHz under 1V reverse bias. Moreover, the medium-wavelength focal plane of 320×256 array is demonstrated the imaging, and the low noise, high sensitivity and fast imaging characteristics of HgCdTe APDs under linear avalanche gain are verified.
Hg1-xCdxTe is considered as the preferred material for high performance infrared photodetectors and imaging focal plane array (FPA) detectors. One of the technical challenges of multi-dimensional integrated HgCdTe epitaxy by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) lies in the in-situ extraction, characterization and precisely control of a series of parameters such as alloy composition, surface roughness, substrate temperature and film thickness at a relatively low substrate temperature of about 180°C. Therefore, an in-situ, nondestructive spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) method is needed to characterize the performance of HgCdTe films. In this paper, real time optical property characterization of short-wave Hg1-xCdxTe epitaxial grown by MBE is reported. Run to run feasibility and stability of in-situ SE is confirmed by buffer layer thickness verification in multiple growth runs. Lorentz oscillator parametric model provides a new approach to describe optical dispersion property of HgCdTe over spectral range of 1.5-4.1 eV. The absorption peaks show blue shift with the increase of HgCdTe Cd composition (x). Under this circumstance, the longitudinal x value for HgCdTe during epitaxy process can be obtained in real time without any surface damage by successfully building a composition-dependent optical constant library, with routine run-to-run reproducibility measurement accuracy Δx of ~ 0.0015. This work will facilitate the fabrication of HgCdTe heterojunctions with complex component distribution and doping profiles.
HgCdTe avalanche photodiodes (APD) have been demonstrated to be one of the most promising paths for low flux and high speed applications. The bandwidth of HgCdTe e-APD has been theoretically predicted to be independent of the gain, owed to its strongly dominant electron multiplication. However, when the photocurrent is high, a large number of electrons exists in the depletion region, and the electrical field in the depletion region might collapse due to the space charge effect, thus limiting the increase of the gain-bandwidth product. In this work, the structure of the device was optimized by simulation, and the effect of the light injection dose on the electric field and bandwidth of the device was studied. Finally, a mid-wavelength infrared HgCdTe e-APD device whose bandwidth almost doesn't decrease with the increase of gain is fabricated. The response bandwidth of the APD is about 480MHz @ gain=625, corresponding to a gain-bandwidth product of 300GHz.
HgCdTe has been shown to be the first semiconductor exhibiting single-carrier multiplication in avalanche photodiodes (APDs) up to gain values larger than 1000 and with close to zero excess noise. These results have opened a new windows for low-flux and versatile imaging. In this paper, we report the latest results on a 50μm pitch 128×128 array HgCdTe APDs with xcd=0.307 manufactured at SITP. Through optimizing the implantation parameters and annihilation parameters, the designed PIN junction structure could be obtained, and then the performance of APD device was improved. The APDs display a gain of 728 around 10V reverse bias, and the standard deviation of the gain was 18.3% of the mean gain of 113 at 7.8V. The GNDC is less than 100nA/cm2 at the bias<9V, but the dark current starts increasing significantly faster than the gain at high bias, and then the device becomes dark current noise limited. The excess noise factor F is less than 1.8 up to gain of 700, and the F factor of 94.75% pixels is less than 1.4 at gain of 126. The Noise Equivalent Photon (NEPh) is 16 photons at gain of 500, and a demonstration imaging was shown.
The HgCdTe avalanche photodiode (APD) with built-in gain mechanism has great application prospects in the field of weak light signal detection. Any dark current will be converted into noise affecting the work efficiency of photodetectors. Therefore, the study of dark current mechanism is an important way to obtain high performance HgCdTe APD. In this paper, the photoelectric detection mechanism of planar junction electron injection HgCdTe APD is systematically studied, focusing on two aspects of structural optimization design and performance improvement. The dependence of device performance parameters on structure parameters is obtained by comparing the simulation results and experimental results. The lower the trap concentration, the smaller the dark current under small reverse bias voltage is, and the higher the operation voltage is. The dark current density of HgCdTe APD array is about 10-8 A/cm2 under small bias voltage. In addition to the material parameters, the dark current is mainly related to the internal electric field, which is affected by the width and doping concentration of the depletion region. The results show that device structure is the major determinant for the performance difference of HgCdTe APD. The structural optimization direction of high-performance HgCdTe APD is to further suppress the local electric field and reduce the dark current by adjusting the process.
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