Al0.85Ga0.15As0.56Sb0.44 avalanche photodiodes with high immunity to temperature fluctuation

Abstract

Avalanche gain and breakdown voltage in most wide bandgap semiconductor materials are dependent on temperature and most instruments utilizing APDs rely on temperature stabilization or voltage compensation circuitry to maintain a constant avalanche gain. The complexity in operation circuitry can be reduced by incorporating material with inherently superior temperature stability in its avalanche gain and breakdown voltage. In state of the art APDs, the temperature dependence of avalanche breakdown voltage is quantified by the temperature coefficient of avalanche breakdown, Cbd. We report on the temporal and temperature stability of avalanche gain and breakdown voltage of 100 nm thick avalanche layers of Al0.85Ga0.15As0.56Sb0.44 (AlGaAsSb). The Cbd (1.60 mV/K) is smaller compared to state of art InP and InAlAs APDs for similar avalanche layer thickness. The temporal stability of avalanche gain for the AlGaAsSb APD was also evaluated in temperature ranges of 294 K to 353 K. The APD was biased at room temperature gain of 10 and maximum fluctuation of ±0.7% was recorded at 294 K which increases to ±1.33% when the temperature was increased to 353K. The promising temperature stability of gain indicates the potential of AlGaAsSb lattice matched to InP in achieving higher tolerance to temperature fluctuations and reduction of the operational complexity of circuitry. The dark currents are robust and do not show significant thermal degradation after gain measurements at elevated temperatures.