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Insb Pin Pjotodiode
Insb Pin Pjotodiode
J. Abautret, J. P. Perez, A. Evirgen, F. Martinez, P. Christol, J. Fleury, H. Sik, R. Cluzel, A. Ferron, and J.
Rothman
detector, an infrared detector with reduced dark current and higher operating
temperature
Applied Physics Letters 89, 151109 (2006); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2360235
(Received 1 March 2013; accepted 29 April 2013; published online 14 May 2013)
Current density-voltage (J-V) characteristics at 77 K of InSb pin photodiodes, in dark condition and
under illumination, were simulated in view to design an avalanche photodiode (APD). Theoretical
J-V results were compared with experimental results, performed on InSb diode fabricated by
molecular beam epitaxy, in order to validate the parameter values used for the modeling. Then, with
the assumption of multiplication induced by the electrons, an optimized separate absorption and
multiplication APD structure was defined by theoretically studying the absorber doping level and the
multiplication layer thickness. Calculated gain value higher than 10 was achieved at V ¼ 4.5 V.
This result shows the potentiality of InSb material as APD device. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4804956]
The generation-recombination process is described by evolution in the structures varying both the cadmium compo-
the well-known SRH recombination rate31,32 sition and the temperature.37,38 We have chosen this model,
available in the ATLAS simulator, to add the impact ionization
pn n2ie process in the simulations. The main issue for this modeling
RSRH ¼ h i h i ; (2)
t Ei Ei Et comes from the fact that an experimental gain measurement
sp n þ nie exp EkT L
þ sn p þ nie exp KTL
is needed. As there is no experimental measurement
achieved on InSb avalanche photodiode with a defined multi-
with n, p, and nie the electron, the hole, and the intrinsic car-
plication layer thickness, we supposed e-APD with no addi-
rier concentration, respectively; Et is the trap energy level
tion of excess noise and used the following expression
which is set equal to Ei the intrinsic Fermi level, k is the
(Eq. (7)) for the electron impact ionization process:
Boltzmann constant, and TL is the lattice temperature. sn and
sp are the electron and hole carrier lifetime.
c b
The current density is then given by aðEÞ ¼ aE exp ; (7)
E
ð
JGR ¼ q RSRH dy: (3) where a, b, and c are the Okuto-Crowel parameters and E is
W
the electric field.
The a, b, c parameters are directly related to the gain
Then, we modeled the JTAT by using the Eq. (4), similar to evolution: a is referred to the slope of the gain curve, b to the
the previous one (Eq. (2)), but including a field effect factor beginning of the avalanche effect, and c a fitted parameter.
C (Ref. 32) in order to modify the SRH trap lifetime. This As mentioned before, an experimental gain measurement is
modification especially includes the effect of phonon- needed in order to fit the data with the following expression:
assisted tunneling on the emission of electrons and holes
M ¼ e½aV w1c expðbw
V Þ
C
from a trap ; (8)
FIG. 6. InSb pin structure: Experimental (solid line) and simulated (dashed
line) dark current densities as a function of the bias voltage for a residual
doping level of 1 1015 cm3 at 77 K. Carrier lifetimes values sn ¼ 30 ls
FIG. 4. Schematic InSb pin structure realized by MBE. and sp ¼ 20 ns, are extracted for electrons and holes, respectively.
183716-5 Abautret et al. J. Appl. Phys. 113, 183716 (2013)
FIG. 7. Schematic structure used for the SAM-APD simulation. The p-type FIG. 9. InSb SAM-APD structure: Gain as a function of the bias voltage for
absorber zone is made of different doping values while for the n-type multi- n-type layer thickness of 1 lm and for different doping values of p-type
plication region several thicknesses are studied. absorbing layer.
We observed quite good agreement between experimen- a 1.55 lm frontside monochromatic light (intensity of
tal data and simulation. The carrier lifetimes were adjusted 0.01 W/cm2) is used.
to fit the measurements leading to the following values
sn ¼ 30 ls and sp ¼ 20 ns, for electron and hole, respectively.
Those values are coherent with carrier lifetime measure-
ments performed in n-type InSb42 and will be used for the A. Influence of the p-type absorber doping level
following simulations. As a first result, the reduction of the To study the influence of the p-type absorber doping
band to band tunneling current is achieved with the ability to level, the thickness of the multiplication layer is first taken
realize by MBE InSb pin structure with a background doping equal to 1 lm. Fig. 8 shows the simulated dark current den-
level under 1 1015 cm3. sities (a) and the simulated current densities under illumina-
tion at a wavelength of 1.55 lm at 77 K (b). One can remark
III. DESIGN OPTIMIZATION FOR AVALANCHE
the important band to band tunneling dark current at reverse
PHOTODIODE OPERATION
bias equal to 2V, limiting the potential gain of such diode
In this part, we propose to describe different ways to design, as shown in Fig. 9. The associated gain curves
optimize the reduction of the band to band tunneling current obtained by Eq. (9) (Ref. 2) for different p-type doping pro-
and to improve the benefit of the avalanche phenomenon in files of the 2 lm thick APD absorber are presented in Fig.
InSb photodiode. The typical structure on n-type InSb sub- 10. One of them consists of a p-type linear-graded doping
strate is defined on Fig. 7. layer from 5 1016 cm3 to 1 1018 cm3 (from bottom to
The doping levels of the n-type t-thick multiplication top). This doping profile leads to both a small reduction of
layer and the 400 nm-thick buffer layer are, respectively, the electric field and a suppression of eventual spikes.
equal to 1 1015 cm3 and 1 1017 cm3. This structure Therefore, the tunneling current contribution appears at
was designed to operate like a SAM-APD. Indeed, the 2 lm- higher reverse bias. Results displayed in Fig. 8 show that the
thick p-type InSb layer allows to absorb the major part of the absorber doping level has a small influence on the gain
incoming photon flux43 and to inject only electrons in the value. Whatever the doping profile, the gain value is close to
n-type multiplication layer. For the photocurrent simulation, 3 at 2.5 V, but a small shift in the apparition of the band to
band tunneling is observed. The more favorable doping contribution for the 3 lm-thick multiplication layer structure
seems to be the graded one up to 4.5 V with a predictable gain value higher than 10.
That demonstrates the importance of increasing the multipli-
Itot ðVÞ Idark ðVÞ cation layer thickness in order to reduce the band to band
M¼ : (9)
Itot ðV; M ¼ 1Þ Idark ðV; M ¼ 1Þ tunneling current in InSb pin structures. A useful gain value
near 3 for a 1 lm-thick multiplication layer rises over 10 for
the 3 lm-thick one.
B. Influence of the multiplication layer thickness
We propose in this part to study the dark current density,
IV. CONCLUSION
the photocurrent density, and then the gain value as a func-
tion of the multiplication layer thickness. The structures con- Using the Silvaco ATLAS simulator, current-voltage char-
sist of a 2 lm-thick p-type absorber layer with the graded acteristics of InSb pin diode and APD devices were modeled.
doping previously shown, a multiplication layer with a The simulated results were fitted with InSb pin photodiode
n-type background doping level of 1 1015 cm3 whatever grown by MBE on n-type InSb substrate having a residual
its thickness, and a 400 nm-thick n-type buffer layer doped at background carrier concentration in the undoped region
1 1017 cm3. around 1 1015 cm3. In the case of an electron-initiated av-
Fig. 10(a) clearly shows the reduction of the band to alanche process, different (SAM) APD designs were theoret-
band tunneling current contribution while increasing the ically investigated, in order to put off the band to band
multiplication layer thickness. This trend is explained by the tunneling current apparition. Results show the influence of
reduction of the electric field in the structure inducing a the p-type absorber doping level and the necessity to increase
weaker available energy for the tunneling process (Fig. the multiplication layer thickness to reduce the contribution
10(b)). of the band to band tunneling current. As a result, an opti-
We have also realized simulations under illumination mized SAM APD structure was defined. It consists of a
and extracted the gain value, presented in Fig. 11. It is worth 2 lm-thick p-type grading absorbing layer and a 3 lm-thick
noting that there is no band to band tunneling current n-type multiplication layer with a background doping level
under 1 1015 cm3, achieving a gain value higher than 10
at 4.5 V at 77 K. This performance evaluation will be soon
compared with experimental characteristics performed on
MBE grown InSb APD structure.
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