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Tcad Simul MQW Photodetector PDF
Tcad Simul MQW Photodetector PDF
Abstract
We demonstrate the capabilities of SILVACO TCAD tools The principle underlying the operation of a QWIP is that
for the design and simulation of intersubband GaAs/Al- of a quantum particle in a box. A set of quantum wells,
GaAs multiple quantum well infrared photodetectors. We with geometry and composition chosen to support only
compute the photoconductive gain spectrum of the de- one bound state, collectively form a superlattice that
vice self consistently with the charge flow, non-radiative supports a quasi-continuum of extended states carrying
capture-escape, and intersubband transitions in the ac- finite momentum. As a result, a bound state electron ex-
tive region. The solid state calculations provide input to cited into an extended state by a photon generates a finite
a light propagation modeling tool that allows for multiple photocurrent. Thus the bound to extended transitions
reflections in the layered geometry of the active region. form the fundamental absorption mechanism that deter-
From this full calculation, we extract light absorption and mines both the wavelength and the quantum efficiency
quantum efficiency as a function of the angle of incidence of the detector. Perhaps the most attractive feature of a
and the wavelength of a mono-spectral beam of light. This QWIP in this respect is the fact that absorption spectrum
TCAD simulation can be used as a starting point by de- can be tuned by quantum well thickness and the barrier
sign engineers for obtaining guide lines to analyze and composition. On the other hand, the requirement of at
optimize quantum well infrared photodetectors. least 30-50 wells in a single device is still a limiting fac-
Keywords: Intersubband transitions, QWIP, Capture-Escape, k.p,
tor, which arises from the limited ability to control the
TCAD, Zincblende (z.b), Superlattice growth over such thicknesses.
To bias the active region, we include 100 nm thick GaAs CPU, memory, and simulation time. However, this does
n-type contacts at the top and bottom of the active re- not affect the conclusions reached in the simulation due
gion, and doped to the same concentration as the wells. to the fact that the quantum wells are independent to
The conduction band diagram with electron quasi-Fermi a very good approximation. Thus their optical response
are shown in the Figure 1. In Figure 2, we show the pro- is additive. An additional difference arises from the fact
files of bound states acting as the initial states, and in that the quasi-continuum of extended states of the full
Figure 3 we show the profile of a typical traveling state device is replaced by a discrete spectrum in the smaller
acting as the final state in optical absorption. The bound device modeled here. This is easily accounted for with a
states decay sufficiently rapidly in the barriers that the physically reasonable yet sufficiently large broadening of
well states can indeed be considered decoupled. In absorption line shape. Nonetheless, the users also have
Figure 3 we note that the extended states are character- the ability to model absorption into a 1D continuum with
ized by highly oscillatory structure. Since the Schroding- its edge at the first extended state above each well.
er equation solves (see below) for the entire profile, these
We found from the simulation that the highly oscillatory
oscillations require a mesh with large spatial resolution.
nature of the extended states results in a very slow conver-
We simulated 3 quantum wells instead of the full 50 well gence of the magnitude of the optical transition matrix el-
device in [2] because the large oscillations of quantum ements with respect to spatial resolution. This only affects
states require spatial resolution of less than 1 Angstrom, the magnitude of the spectral response, while its shape
such that the simulation domain becomes limited by the converges rapidly at much coarser mesh spacing. Thus the
meshes or nodes play a significant role for the accurate
estimation of the range of detectable wavelengths, as well
as the peak detection wavelength. The present simulation
also provides an accurate estimate of quantum efficiency
as a function of the incidence angle, taking into account
both the fact that intersubband transitions are driven
purely by TM modes (see below), as well as the effects of
multiple reflections at material interfaces. Depending on
the desired accuracy of magnitude of efficiency per well,
users may need to further refine the mesh, resulting in
longer simulation times.
(4)
We now show the results of total absorption of a mono Here, λ is the wavelength, η is the quantum efficiency, h
spectral beam of light incident on this device at various is the Planck’s constant, c is the velocity of light, q is the
angles and wavelengths. Figure 6 shows absorption and electron charge, and G is the photoelectric current gain.
the ratio of available to source photocurrent as a func-
tion of the angle of angle of incidence. The source pho- The dark current characteristics of a QWIP is shown in
tocurrent is the incident beam power converted to units Figure 8 This can be performed by performing a series of
of electrical current, while the available photocurrent is simulations with the same bias voltage scan but different
the photocurrent generated by absorption. Thus in the temperature specified on the models statement. The cur-
absence of other loss mechanisms for IR photons, and rent plotted on a logarithmic scale is computed for a large
the generated electrons, the ratio simply reproduces the bias range than in order to display its typical profile. Com-
absorption curve. parison f the dark current curves for the present device at
77 K and 300 K shows the temperature dependency. The
In Figure 6, the dependence of absorption on the angle of dark current is almost zero under zero bias condition, as
incidence θ shows the characteristic sin 2(θ) form at small biasing increases the current varies linearly. The curves
angles. We note that the maximum lies around 70 de- clearly show the striking increase in dark current at high-
grees, and not at 90 degrees as would be expected from er temperature. This results from the much higher ther-
sin2(θ) alone. As the angle of incidence increases the mal excitation at higher temperature. On the other hand,
beam propagates a greater distance along the surface, the differential dependence on the voltage remains very
and thus a lower fraction interacts with the wells before similar in both temperature regimes.
being reflected back out of the device. The Luminous
module in Atlas properly accounts for all the reflections
to compute the actual angular dependence of the total
absorption, and it clearly shows the expected drop in ab-
sorption as compared sin2(θ) as incidence angles reach
60 degrees and beyond.