High temperature stability and electrostatic discharge sensibility of InGaAs/InP avalanche photodetectors

Temperature dependent dark current-voltage measurements performed on four different types of Separate Absorption Grading Multiplication avalanche photodiodes showed that the increase of the dark current can be described for all devices by a single activation energy and that the breakdown voltage increases strictly linearly with temperature, both in a wide temperature range between 25/spl deg/C and 150/spl deg/C. Three types of avalanche photodiodes showed no performance degradation during 5000 h of a temperature step-stress test at temperatures up to 150/spl deg/C, while for another device type with active layer inhomogeneities already at low temperatures a continuous lowering of the breakdown voltage, followed by a rapid increase of the dark current has been observed. During electrostatic discharge tests the avalanche diodes failed at pulse amplitudes between 700 V and 1400 V.