Recent progress on advanced infrared photodetectors

Modern infrared detector technology has a history of nearly eighty years. Since the first PbS photodiode was put into use during the World War II, infrared detectors have achieved significant progress, even the third-generation infrared systems have been proposed. In the past decades, the traditional infrared detectors represented by HgCdTe, InSb and InGaAs have been widely applied in military, remote sensing, communication, bioscience, and space exploration. However, the increasing applications demand higher performance infrared detectors. Especially in recent years, the intelligent infrared detection technique was strongly demanded in many high-tech fields such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality systems and smart city. Therefore, the fabricating of infrared detection systems with smaller size, lighter weight, lower power, higher performance and lower price has become an urgent task. At present, the infrared photodetectors are in an age of rapid change, and many new type of advanced infrared photodetectors come to the fore quickly. For the purpose of summarizing these detectors, they are reviewed covering four parts: microstructure coupled infrared detector, infrared detector based on band engineering, new type of low-dimensional material infrared detector, and new directions for traditional infrared detectors. In the infrared detection systems, these photodetectors can be fully used for their prominent performance. The microstructure coupled infrared detector can improve chip integration with high quantum efficiency. Precise design of band structure will raise the operating temperature for mid and long wavelenth infrared photodetectors. Owing to the unique structures and physical properties, low-dimensional material infrared photodetectors have shown their potential application value in flexibility and room temperature detection systems. The ability of avalanche photodetector to detect the extremely weak signal makes it possible using in the frontier science such as quantum private communication and three-dimensional radar imaging systems. The device based on hot electron effect provides a new idea for far infrared detection. The barrier detectors will reduce the manufacturing cost of traditional materials and the design is also very illuminating for other new materials. In this review, firstly we present the history of infrared photodetectors in short. Then the mechanism and achievements of the advanced infrared photodetectors are introduced in detail. Finally, the opportunities and challenges of infrared detection are summarized and predicted.