An improved design for AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes with enhanced avalanche ionization**Project supported by the State Key Project of Research and Development Plan, China (Grant No. 2016YFB0400903), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61634002, 61274075, and 61474060), the Key Project of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant No. BE2016174), the Anhui University Natural Science Research Project, China (Grant No.

Abstract

To enhance the avalanche ionization, we designed a new separate absorption and multiplication AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiode (APD) by using a high/low-Al-content AlGaN heterostructure as the multiplication region instead of the conventional AlGaN homogeneous layer. The calculated results show that the designed APD with Al0.3Ga0.7N/Al0.45Ga0.55N heterostructure multiplication region exhibits a 60% higher gain than the conventional APD and a smaller avalanche breakdown voltage due to the use of the low-Al-content Al0.3Ga0.7N which has about a six times higher hole ionization coefficient than the high-Al-content Al0.45Ga0.55N. Meanwhile, the designed APD still remains a good solar-blind characteristic by introducing a quarter-wave AlGaN/AlN distributed Bragg reflectors structure at the bottom of the device.