I-V characterization of a staircase quantum well infrared photodetector

Abstract

In this work, a quantum well infrared photodetector structure which consists of three different well thicknesses with three different barrier compositions producing a staircase-like conduction band profile with the reputation of 30 periods has been investigated. Dark current measurements have been done at the range from 6 K to 290 K temperature. Activation energies of the carriers have been obtained from the temperature dependence of the I-V measurements. The change of the activation energy with bias voltage has also been obtained. From the activation energy at zero bias and calculated quasi Fermi energy, barrier heights of the quantum wells and ground state energies were obtained. All obtained ground state energies have been found to be consistent with the results obtained from calculations with the transfer matrix method. (C) 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim