High-temperature operation of mid-infrared (/spl lambda/=4-5 /spl mu/m) vertical and lateral InAs/GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors

摘要

Summary form only given. Infrared (IR) detection has sundry applications from military targeting systems to the observation of stellar phenomena to professional photography. It is desirable to develop a high temperature IR photon detection technology, which would lend itself more readily to lightweight, compact, inexpensive IR cameras. Intersubband quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) have great promise for providing high-temperature normal incidence operation in the mid- and far-infrared ranges due to the favorable dynamics of hot carriers in quantum dots. In this paper, we present state-of-the-art results on vertical and lateral mid-infrared (/spl lambda/= 4-5 /spl mu/m) InAs/GaAs/AlGaAs QDIPs. To our knowledge, the vertical detector we have characterized has the lowest reported dark current for such a device (I/sub dark-vertical/=125 nA at V/sub b/=0.5 V for T=100 K). The lateral detector, which also has an extremely low dark current ( I/sub dark-lateral/=27 pA at V/sub b/=0.5 V for T=100 K), also has one of the highest operating temperatures (100 K) to be reported for such a device.