Mid-wavelength infrared p-on-n Hg1−xCdxTe heterostructure detectors: 30–120 kelvin state-of-the-Art performance

Autor: Donald E. Cooper, G. Hildebrandt, Kadri Vural, Jose M. Arias, Donald N. B. Hall, James D. Garnett, Craig A. Cabelli, M. Zandian, J. G. Pasko, J. Chow, Mark Farris, M. Carmody, R. E. DeWames
Rok vydání: 2003
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Electronic Materials. 32:803-809
ISSN: 1543-186X
0361-5235
DOI: 10.1007/s11664-003-0074-6
Popis: We report on Hg1−xCdxTe mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) detectors grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) on CdZnTe substrates. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of HgCdTe-MWIR devices and temperature dependence of focal-plane array (FPA) dark current have been investigated and compared with the most recent InSb published data. These MWIR p-on-n Hg1−xCdxTe/CdZnTe heterostructure detectors give outstanding performance, and at 68 K, they are limited by diffusion currents. For temperatures lower than 68 K, in the near small-bias region, another current is dominant. This current has lower sensitivity to temperature and most likely is of tunneling origin. High-performance MWIR devices and arrays were fabricated with median RoA values of 3.96 × 1010 Ω-cm2 at 78 K and 1.27 × 1012 Ω-cm2 at 60 K; the quantum efficiency (QE) without an antireflection (AR) coating was 73% for a cutoff wavelength of 5.3 µm at 78 K. The QE measurement was performed with a narrow pass filter centered at 3.5 µm. Many large-format MWIR 1024 × 1024 FPAs were fabricated and tested as a function of temperature to confirm the ultra-low dark currents observed in individual devices. For these MWIR FPAs, dark current as low as 0.01 e−/pixel/sec at 58 K for 18 × 18 µm pixels was measured. The 1024 × 1024 array operability and AR-coated QE at 78 K were 99.48% and 88.3%, respectively. A comparison of these results with the state-of-the-art InSb-detector data suggests MWIR-HgCdTe devices have significantly higher performance in the 30–120 K temperature range. The InSb detectors are dominated by generation-recombination (G-R) currents in the 60–120 K temperature range because of a defect center in the energy gap, whereas MWIR-HgCdTe detectors do not exhibit G-R-type currents in this temperature range and are limited by diffusion currents.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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