Modified electron beam induced current technique for in(Ga)As/InAsSb superlattice infrared detectors

Abstract

Electron beam induced current (EBIC) measurements provide a powerful tool for characterizing semiconductor based materials and devices. By measuring the current generated by the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope (SEM), EBIC allows us to extract the minority carrier diffusion length (L) and the surface recombination velocity to diffusivity ratio (S/D) of a material. When combined with information on minority carrier lifetime (τ), for instance from time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, the minority carrier mobility of the material can be extracted. However, the EBIC technique relies heavily on the accurate modeling of the carrier generation and collection process. Traditionally, this was achieved using a combination of empirical analytical expressions (and later Monte Carlo simulations) for carrier generation and analytical diffusion/recombination expressions for carrier collection. This approach introduces significant uncertainties into the extracted material parameters. Here, we present a numerical approach to EBIC modeling which improves the spatial resolution of our model, while also retaining information regarding the relative EBIC signal as a function of incident beam energies and currents. We apply this technique to investigate the temperature dependent minority carrier mobility of InAs/InAsSb and InGaAs/InAsSb strained layer superlattice infrared detectors and compare our results to the values obtained using external quantum efficiency measurements of the same samples. Our approach not only allows for an improvement in the uncertainty of the extracted material parameters, but also offers insight into the material and device behavior as a function of nonequilibrium carrier concentration. The technique presented here offers potentially improved characterization of not only infrared detectors, but a range of semiconductor-based devices.