III-V alloy heterostructure high speed avalanche photodiodes

Abstract

Heterostructure avalanche photodiodes have been successfully fabricated in several III-V alloy systems: GaAlAs/GaAs, GaAlSb/GaSb, GaAlAsSb/GaAlSb, and InGaAsP/InP. These diodes cover optical wavelengths from <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0.4 to 1.8 \mu</tex> m. Early stages of development show very encouraging results. High speed response of <35 ps and high quantum efficiency >95 percent have been obtained. The dark currents and the excess avalanche noise will also be discussed. A direct comparison of GaAlSb, GaAlAsSb, and InGaAsP avalanche photodiodes is given.