This paper concerns measurements and calculations of low frequency noise for semiconductor layers with four-probe electrodes. The measurements setup for the voltage noise cross-correlation method is described. The gain calculations for local resistance noise are performed to evaluate the contribution to total noise from different areas of the layer. It was shown, through numerical calculations and noise measurements, that in four-point probe specimens, with separated current and voltage terminals, the non-resistance noise of the contact and the resistance noise of the layer can be identified. The four-point probe method is used to find the low frequency resistance noise of the GaSb layer with a different doping type. For n-type and p-type GaSb layers with low carrier concentrations, the measured noise is dominated by the non-resistance noise contributions from contacts. Low frequency resistance noise was identified in high-doped GaSb layers (both types). At room temperature, such resistance noise in an n-type GaSb layer is significantly larger than for p-type GaSb with comparable doping concentration.
Non-intentionally doped GaSb epilayers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on highly mismatched semi-insulating GaAs substrate (001) with 2 offcut towards (110). The effects of substrate temperature and the Sb/Ga flux ratio on the crystalline quality, surface morphology and electrical properties were investigated by Nomarski optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Hall measurements, respectively. Besides, differential Hall was used to investigate the hole concentration behaviour along the GaSb epilayer. It is found that the crystal quality, electrical properties and surface morphology are markedly dependent on the growth temperature and the group V/III flux ratio. Under the optimized parameters, we demonstrate a low hole concentration at very low growth temperature. Unfortunately, the layers grown at low temperature are characterized by wide FWHM and low Hall mobility.
The paper presents the method and results of low-frequency noise measurements of modern mid-wavelength infrared photodetectors. A type-II InAs/GaSb superlattice based detector with nBn barrier architecture is compared with a high operating temperature (HOT) heterojunction HgCdTe detector. All experiments were made in the range 1 Hz - 10 kHz at various temperatures by using a transimpedance detection system, which is examined in detail. The power spectral density of the nBn’s dark current noise includes Lorentzians with different time constants while the HgCdTe photodiode has more uniform 1/f - shaped spectra. For small bias, the low-frequency noise power spectra of both devices were found to scale linearly with bias voltage squared and were connected with the fluctuations of the leakage resistance. Leakage resistance noise defines the lower noise limit of a photodetector. Other dark current components give raise to the increase of low-frequency noise above this limit. For the same voltage biasing devices, the absolute noise power densities at 1 Hz in nBn are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than in a MCT HgCdTe detector. In spite of this, low-frequency performance of the HgCdTe detector at ~ 230K is still better than that of InAs/GaSb superlattice nBn detector.
In this paper, we present the electrical and electro-optical characterizations of an InAs/GaSb type-2 superlattice barrier photodetector operating in the full longwave infrared spectral domain. The fabricated detectors exhibited a 50% cut-off wavelength around 14 μm at 80 K and a quantum efficiency slightly above 20%. The dark current density was of 4.6 × 10 2 A/cm2 at 80 K and a minority carrier lateral diffusion was evaluated through dark current measurements on different detector sizes. In addition, detector spectral response, its dark current-voltage characteristics and capacitance-voltage curve accompanied by electric field simulations were analyzed in order to determine the operating bias and the dark current regimes at different biases. Finally, dark current simulations were also performed to estimate a minority carrier lifetime by comparing experimental curves with simulated ones.
The utmost limit performance of interband cascade detectors optimized for the longwave range of infrared radiation is investigated in this work. Currently, materials from the III–V group are characterized by short carrier lifetimes limited by Shockley-Read-Hall generation and recombination processes. The maximum carrier lifetime values reported at 77 K for the type-II superlattices InAs/GaSb and InAs/InAsSb in a longwave range correspond to ∼200 and ∼400 ns. We estimated theoretical detectivity of interband cascade detectors assuming above carrier lifetimes and a value of ∼1–50 μs reported for a well-known HgCdTe material. It has been shown that for room temperature the limit value of detctivity is of ∼3–4×1010 cmHz1/2/W for the optimized detector operating at the wavelength range ∼10 μm could be reached.
This study is based on the investigation of AlSb layer thickness effect on heavy−hole light−hole (HH−LH) splitting and band gap energies in a recently developed N−structure based on InAs/AlSb/GaSb type II superlattice (T2SL) p−i−n photodetector.eFirst principle calculations were carried out tailoring the band gap and HH−LH splitting energies for two possible interface transition alloys of InSb and AlAs between InAs and AlSb interfaces in the superlattice. Results show that AlSb and InAs−GaSb layer thicknesses enable to control HH−LH splitting energies to desired values for Auger recombination process where AlSb/GaSb total layer thickness is equal to InAs layers for the structures with InSb and AlAs interfaces