Photodetection in the visible and near-infrared with a silicon pyramidal microdischarge device

In this paper, the characterization of microdischarge based photodetectors, fabricated in p-type silicon cut on the (100) plane was reported. The results show the photosensitivities of four different devices to changes in incident optical power from a He-Ne laser operating at 633 nm. The interesting comparison shows that the response of the microdischarge based photodetector is an order of magnitude larger than that for the avalanche photodiode (APD).