Influence of Base Passivation on the Optical Performance of Dual-Emitter Heterojunction Phototransistors

摘要

N-p-n InGaP/GaAs Dual-Emitter heterojunction phototransistor (DEPT) with/without InGaP-passivation layer have been fabricated to investigate the influence of surface leakage on the device optical performance. The comparison between DEPT with a voltage-biased emitter and HPT with a voltage-biased base is also included. There are four (three) operating regions appearing in the optical characteristics of the DEPT (HPT): negative-saturation, negative-tuning, positive-tuning, and positive-saturation (cut-off, tuning, and saturation) regions. The InGaP-passivated DEPT with the extrinsic base surface passivated by InGaP, exhibits the maximum optical gains of 46.57, 46.86 and 47.39 while the non-passivated one shows those of 32.02, 33.55 and 33.57 under the optical powers of 8.62, 13.2 and 17.5 μW, respectively. However, the optical gains are only in the range of 0.93～2.0 (0.83～1.64) for the InGaP-passivated HPT (non-passivated HPT) for all the illuminating conditions.