Development of Ultra-Low Noise, High Performance III-V Quantum Well InfraredPhotodetectors (QWIPs) for Focal Plane Array Staring Image Sensor Systems

摘要

During this reporting period (02-01-94 to 04-30-94) we have continued to makeexcellent progress. We report two new normal incidence p-type strained-layer III-V quantun well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) for 3-5 and 8-14 um detection. An ultra-low dark current p-type tensile strained-layer (PTSL) In(0.3)Ga(0.7)As/In(0.52)Al(0.48)As QWIP grown on InP by MBE for 8-14 um detection has been developed. It shows BLIP for T<100 K. Due to a 1.5% lattice mismatch between the substrate and quantum well, a biaxial tensile strain was created in the well layers. As a result, the light-hole state becomes the ground state for the free hole with small effective mass. The dramatic increase of optical absorption can be attributed to the large in-plane density of states and