An improved design for AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes with enhanced avalanche ionization

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/26/3/038503

Abstract

To enhance the avalanche ionization, we designed a new separate absorption and multiplication AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiode (APD) by using a high/low-Al-content AlGaN heterostructure as the multiplication region instead of the conventional AlGaN homogeneous layer. The calculated results show that the designed APD with Al_0.3Ga_0.7N/Al_0.45Ga_0.55N heterostructure multiplication region exhibits a 60% higher gain than the conventional APD and a smaller avalanche breakdown voltage due to the use of the low-Al-content Al_0.3Ga_0.7N which has about a six times higher hole ionization coefficient than the high-Al-content Al_0.45Ga_0.55N. Meanwhile, the designed APD still remains a good solar-blind characteristic by introducing a quarter-wave AlGaN/AlN distributed Bragg reflectors structure at the bottom of the device.

Keywords: AlGaN deep ultraviolet photoelectric detector distributed Bragg reflector

Received: 11 June 2016
Revised: 12 December 2016
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	85.60.Dw	(Photodiodes; phototransistors; photoresistors)
	85.60.Bt	(Optoelectronic device characterization, design, and modeling)

Fund:

Project supported by the State Key Project of Research and Development Plan, China (Grant No. 2016YFB0400903), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61634002, 61274075, and 61474060), the Key Project of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant No. BE2016174), the Anhui University Natural Science Research Project, China (Grant No. KJ2015A153), the Open Fund (KFS) of State Key Lab of Optical Technologieson Nanofabrication and Micro-engineering, Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Science.

Corresponding Authors: Dun-Jun Chen
E-mail: djchen@nju.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Yin Tang(汤寅), Qing Cai(蔡青), Lian-Hong Yang(杨莲红), Ke-Xiu Dong(董可秀), Dun-Jun Chen(陈敦军), Hai Lu(陆海), Rong Zhang(张荣), You-Dou Zheng(郑有炓) An improved design for AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes with enhanced avalanche ionization 2017 Chin. Phys. B 26 038503

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An improved design for AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes with enhanced avalanche ionization

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