Improved planar InAs avalanche photodiodes with reduced dark current and increased responsivity

Indium Arsenide (InAs) infrared photodiodes
provide high quantum efficiency in the wavelength range of 1.0 to 3.0 µm.
Planar diode configuration has been adopted to reduce surface leakage. In this
work, new fabrication procedures for planar InAs avalanche photodiodes (APDs)
are reported. Beryllium (Be) ions were implanted into InAs at a relatively low
energy of 34 keV. Effects of duration of post implant annealing on the
electrical characteristics of InAs APDs were investigated. It was found that a
combination of post implant annealing at 500 °C for 15 minutes and a
shallow surface etch produces planar APDs with good characteristics (room
temperature dark current density of 0.52 A/cm2 at -0.2 V and external
quantum efficiency of 51% at 1520 nm at ‑0.3 V). These represent a 3 times reduction
in dark current and 1.4 times increase in responsivity, compared to earlier Be‑implanted
planar InAs APDs. The APDs’ avalanche gain characteristics remain similar to those
from earlier reports, with a gain of 4 at a relatively low operating bias of 5
V. This suggests the potential of integrating InAs APDs with low voltage
readout integrated circuits (ROIC) for development of infrared imaging arrays. The
data reported in this paper is available from the ORDA digital repository (DOI:
10.15131/shef.data.6955037).

锑化铟（InAs）红外光电二极管在1.0至3.0微米的波长范围内展现出卓越的量子效率。为降低表面漏电，本研究采纳了平面二极管配置。本研究报告了平面InAs雪崩光电二极管（APD）的新型制造工艺。采用34 keV的低能贝里利（Be）离子注入InAs。研究了后离子退火时间对InAs APD电学特性的影响。研究发现，在500°C下退火15分钟与浅层表面蚀刻相结合，能够产生具有良好特性的平面APD（在-0.2 V下的室温暗电流密度为0.52 A/cm2，在-0.3 V下的1520 nm处的外部量子效率为51%）。与早期的Be注入平面InAs APD相比，这些特性实现了暗电流降低3倍和响应度提高1.4倍。APD的雪崩增益特性与早期报道相似，在相对较低的5 V工作偏置下，增益达到4。这表明将InAs APD与低压读出集成电路（ROIC）集成以开发红外成像阵列具有潜在价值。本文所报告的数据可通过ORDA数字存储库获取（DOI：10.15131/shef.data.6955037）。