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On the Sensitivity of Electron-Injection Detectors at Low Light Level | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

On the Sensitivity of Electron-Injection Detectors at Low Light Level

Publisher: IEEE
Open Access

The schematic diagram and the scanning electron microscope image of the electron-injection detector. The noise equivalent sensitivity measurement and comparison with exis...
Impact Statement:We present the signal-to-noise performance of a short-wave infrared detector, which offers an internal avalanche-free gain. The performance comparison with other device t...View more

Abstract:

We present the signal-to-noise performance of a short-wave infrared detector, which offers an internal avalanche-free gain. The detector is based on a similar mechanism a...View more
Impact Statement:
We present the signal-to-noise performance of a short-wave infrared detector, which offers an internal avalanche-free gain. The performance comparison with other device technologies demonstrates that the so-called electron-injector detectors offer more than three orders of magnitude better noise-equivalent sensitivity compared with state-of-the-art phototransistors operating at similar temperatures.

Abstract:

We present the signal-to-noise performance of a short-wave infrared detector, which offers an internal avalanche-free gain. The detector is based on a similar mechanism as the heterojunction phototransistor and takes advantage of a type-II band alignment. Current devices demonstrate a noise-equivalent sensitivity of ~670 photons at 260 K and over a linear dynamic range of 20 dB. While this level of sensitivity is about an order of magnitude better than an ideal p-i-n detector attached to the same low-noise amplifier, it was still limited by the amplifier noise (~2600 electrons root mean square) due to the insufficient device gain. Performance comparison with other SWIR detector technologies demonstrates that the so-called electron-injection detectors offer more than three orders of magnitude better noise-equivalent sensitivity compared with state-of-the-art phototransistors operating at similar temperature.
The schematic diagram and the scanning electron microscope image of the electron-injection detector. The noise equivalent sensitivity measurement and comparison with exis...
Published in: IEEE Photonics Journal ( Volume: 8, Issue: 3, June 2016)
Article Sequence Number: 6803207
Date of Publication: 27 April 2016

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Publisher: IEEE

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