Carrier transport in unipolar barrier infrared detectors

Abstract

We examine carrier transport in unipolar barrier infrared photodetectors and discuss aspects of barrier, contact, and absorber properties that can affect minority carrier collection. In a barrier infrared detector the unipolar barrier should block only the majority carriers while allowing the un-impeded flow of the minority carriers. Under the right conditions, unipolar barrier doping can reduce generation-recombination dark current without affecting minority carrier extraction. In an nBn structure, ideally with an electron unipolar barrier, improper barrier doping or barrier-absorber valence band offset could also block minority carriers and result in higher turn-on bias. We also examined the temperature-dependent turn-on bias in an n^+Bn device and showed that observed behavior may be attributed to contact doping. Hole mobility in n-doped type-II superlattice (T2SL) is believed to be very low because of the extremely large effective mass along the growth direction. In practice MWIR and LWIR barrier infrared detectors with n-type T2SL absorbers have demonstrated good optical response. A closer inspection of the T2SL band structure offers a possible explanation as to why the hole mobility may not be as poor as suggested by the simple effective mass picture.